


Exposure

by agentquakingskye



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of the Final Battle, Cancer, Daniel Sousa is a supportive square, Episode: s07e13 What We're Fighting For, F/M, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Finale, SHIELD Family, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric, This will be sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 48,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27011335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentquakingskye/pseuds/agentquakingskye
Summary: Dying in a half-second blast of radiation wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be.Dying all over again, slowly, because of that half-second of radiation?That was worse.
Relationships: Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Kora (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson & Agents of SHIELD Team, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 175
Kudos: 258





	1. Dying

**Author's Note:**

> It has been a looooong time since I’ve written anything and I’m not in any of the fandoms I used to write for anymore (I also changed my acc name and orphaned all my old stories) so this is my first time posting for AoS. 
> 
> I’ll hopefully post a new chapter once a week and I’m really excited for this!!

Dying wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. 

Daisy wasn’t sure what she was expecting, maybe the shock and desperation and unbearable pain she remembered from when she was shot all those years ago, or maybe the story of loneliness that Coulson had recounted while sitting with Enoch. At least a homage of her life flashing before her eyes.

But that wasn’t it. 

It was over in seconds, tops. The last thing she felt was the bones in her body splintering under the strain of her quake, the bitter cold of open space, and then nothingness. 

No pain, no fear, just nothing. 

Until a blinding heat suddenly spread out from her chest, thawing every cell in her body, bringing her back into the land of the living. 

She could barely croak out the word “family” in response to the one she had found over the years, the worst combination of throbbing and stabbing and aching pains shooting through her body as it tried to grow accustomed to functioning again. 

When the Zephyr finally landed she was still lying on the floor. Jemma and Daniel— _ when had she started calling him Daniel? _ — both rushed to her side, each doing their own visual damage assessment. Daisy couldn’t pick her head off the floor to look at herself, but from the memory of shattering bones and the horrible bruising that would come with it, she knew it wouldn’t be pretty. 

Daniel’s strong arms around her again, picking her up from the floor as she slumped into his grip. This position seemed to be becoming a habit for the two of them. The warmth of his body pressed against hers began to return feeling to the tips of her fingers, and she reached out for him like a needy child when he set her down in a bed in the medbay, hating the sudden loss of physical contact. 

“I’ll be right here,” he murmured into her hairline, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. 

The two of them sat in the bed in silence as Jemma flitted about, taking X-rays, bracing Daisy’s more severe fractures, and taking scans of the rest of her body. “I want to make sure you haven’t picked up any weird space pathogens while you were— while you were out there,” she commented, taking a few vials of blood and pulling out a few more high tech scanning devices, most likely designed by her and Fitz. 

She paused at one screen, the tiniest frown forming in the corners of her lips. 

“Don’t tell me you found Xandarian snail guts or something in me,” Daisy groaned, a slight smirk on her face. 

“No alien bacteria or diseases, don’t you worry about that. I’m just a bit concerned about the amount of radiation you were exposed to though. I’ll want to keep an eye on you for a while. Make sure you don’t develop any complications.”

“What are the side effects of these  _ complications _ you are looking for?” Daniel asked. He knew that he would have to be watching too; Daisy wouldn’t admit if something began to go wrong. 

“Short term, radiation sickness. If that were to happen, the best case scenario would be mostly nausea, vomiting, general fatigue, and loss of appetite. Worst case scenario it can cause seizures or a coma so that’s why I want to stick close for a little while. If you make it past two months or so without symptoms, you should be good,” Simmons explained. 

“And long term?” Daniel asked. 

Jemma sighed. “Let’s not talk about long term for now. I can’t-- I don’t want to think about that unless we absolutely have to. Hopefully we never will. For now I want to do biweekly check ups until the risk of radiation sickness has passed.” 

“So does that mean you’ll be sticking around?” Daisy asked, a smile in her voice. 

“At least for a little while. We’ll still need time to tie up all our loose ends here, write our reports, and find a place to live. And of course,” she added with a grin, “I’ll need to be sure that your new medical staff is top of the line to keep up with all your  _ shenanigans _ .” 

They both laughed a bit at the comment, remembering their first bit of  _ shenanigans  _ together all those years ago, and tried not to think about the looming possibility that this fight might not be over just yet. 


	2. Long Term Effects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys so I’ve decided for now that Wednesday will be my update day for this, at least for now. If I get ahead on chapters I might make it Wednesday and Sunday but for now I’m going to stick to just once a week. I’m a senior in high school so I want to make sure I can balance the workload before committing to two chapters a week :)

They made her wait almost a full year before starting her new position in space. Mack had been wary about putting her back in the field for a long time, the memory of her lying dead on the floor of the Zephyr seared into his brain, but after a while, he couldn’t think of any more valid excuses to keep her on the base. 

Daisy didn’t despise the time off as much as thought she would. This way, Kora could go through preliminary training at the academy, Sousa could learn how the 21st century worked, and she could spend time getting to know her niece and focus her energy on designing and planning her first long term assignment with S.W.O.R.D. 

But she thrived off of the adrenaline of missions, always had, so when Zephyr 3 and its crew took off on its first 16 month long space adventure, she was more than ready. 

For a while the mission went well. It was mostly a diplomatic outreach, building up earth’s alliances and documenting which planets were inhabited, picking up samples to send back to S.H.I.E.L.D. research facilities when they could. A few visits ended up a little shaky if their gatekeepers had heard Quake’s reputation and weren’t interested in keeping the meetings peaceful, but for the most part other planets were eager to become allied with earth after its heroes proved many times that they could protect against some of the most formidable forces in the galaxy. 

About four months in though, Daisy started getting tired really easily. Even short trips out or planning meetings on Z-3 left her achy and exhausted. Everything went downhill from there. 

Within a month she had lost her period, and was constantly fatigued, dizzy, and nauseous. Some days she was so violently sick that she had to camp out on the floor of the bathroom, and some days her muscles were so weak and tired that she couldn’t leave their bunk. 

Daniel had to take over most of the work of leading the team, because even on her good days she couldn’t be the same captain she was trying to be. Kora and Daniel took turns holding her hair back in the bathroom or laying with her in their bunk on her bad days, but there wasn’t much they could do to help. The crew tried not to let it show for her sake, but everyone was on edge knowing that there was something wrong with their leader. 

She had good days where she was able to get up and help plan meetings with intergalactic leaders and make lunch with her team and spend time hanging out in the cockpit or playing games, but as time went on those days grew further and farther inbetween. 

One day after over a month of steady decline, Kora held her sister in her arms and sent waves of energy through her body with her powers to help minimize the chills that had taken over her body that morning. 

“Daisy, I know you might not want to hear this, but have you considered the possibility that you’re pregnant?” She asked cautiously, unsure of what the reaction would be. 

She couldn’t tell if the groan was in agreement or denial. 

“You’re constantly tired, you’re nauseous, you can barely keep anything down, I know you haven’t gotten your period in at least a few months. And the bunk walls of Z-3 may be soundproof but it’s no big secret that you and Danny Boy are having sex.” 

“I’m not ready to think about that,” was the mumbled reply. 

“I know, but we can’t just keep ignoring this without at least knowing. You’re getting worse and you can’t deny that.”

Daisy shook her head stubbornly. 

“Tell you what?” Kora started to pull away from the embrace, her sister trying to lean further into it. “I’ll help you draw a blood sample, we’ll send it to Jemma and have her test it for you. That way no one here or at S.H.I.E.L.D. has to know. Not even Daniel, unless you want to tell him.”

“If it’s a possibility then I want him to know.” 

“Okay, then that’s a conversation the two of you need to have. I’ll go get the supplies and bring them back here, you text Jemma and let her know we have something coming her way.” 

Within a few days of sending her sample, Daisy received a phone call from Jemma to let her know the results of the test. She had been having a good day, but had been resting in her bunk during her downtime after lunch anyway, so she just got up and closed the door to ensure the conversation would stay private. 

“Hey, Jem. What do you have for me?”

“You’re not pregnant,” was the first thing she blurted out. 

Daisy let out a sigh of relief she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Oh thank god,” she said. “Not that I never want kids, we’ve talked about it and we both do, but we’re not ready for that quite yet.” 

No reply came through the phone. 

“Jemma? I just announced to you that Daniel and I want to have children normally you would be freaking out over something like that,” Daisy teased, again with no response. “Are you still there?” 

A choked sob echoed through the phone, and Daisy felt her heart plummet into her stomach. 

“Jemma, what did you find?” 

Jemma sniffled, finally saying, “I think you should get Daniel for this.”

“Just tell me.” 

“No, please. I don’t want to have to say it more than once.” 

“Okay, just give me a minute I’ll go find him.” 

She stood up, grabbing the wall for a few moments while she waited for the room to stop spinning. She made her way to the doorway, calling out Daniel’s name, not wanting to make the trek from their bunk out to command, and knowing he would be listening for her nearby anyway. 

Sure enough, he came jogging down the hallway, concern etched on his face. “What’s up? Are you okay?”

“Jemma has the results and she wants to tell both of us.” 

“Oh okay, we’ll let’s go then,” he said, starting to walk into the room before Daisy grabbed his arm to stop him. 

“Daniel, they aren’t good. She won’t tell me, but whatever it is she’s really upset by it.” 

“It’s okay. Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”

“You really are a square.”

“But I’m your square,” he said, giving her a small smile and a kiss on the forehead before wrapping an arm around her waist to help her back to the bed. “Let’s do this.” 

Once they were situated back on the bed, Daisy pressed the speakerphone and announced, “okay Jem, we’re both here.” 

“Okay, so Daniel, I’m sure you knew that a few weeks ago Daisy told me she had been pretty sick and sent me a blood sample to run a pregnancy test.”

“Yeah, she told me after Kora suggested it as a possibility,” Daniel said, nodding. 

“She isn’t pregnant. Once I ruled that out, I decided to run a few more tests on the sample to see if I could figure out what was making you so sick.” Daisy could tell she was using her detached doctor voice so she could get the information out without breaking down. 

“It’s the radiation right? It finally came back to bite me in the ass, didn’t it?” 

“I thought the risk for radiation sickness passed over a year ago,” Daniel said. 

“It’s not radiation sickness. This is one of the long term effects I was hoping we wouldn’t ever have to consider.” 

“I didn’t think long term would become a problem so soon. It hasn’t even been two years,” Daniel said, locking eyes with Daisy. 

“So what is it?”

Jemma was crying by now, and she has to take a deep breath to compose herself before slowly saying, “Your blood sample tested positive for acute myeloid leukemia.” 

Suddenly all the cryptic talk about “long term effects” clicked in Daisy’s mind. 

_ Cancer. Of course. Radiation exposure causes cancer.  _

“So what does that mean for me?” Daisy asked, almost on autopilot, the words taking their time to fully register. 

“It means you need to call Mack and tell him the mission is over. Turn the Zephyr around, get to the nearest jump point, and come home immediately.”


	3. We’re Going Home, Agent Johnson

After hanging up the call from Jemma, Daniel leaned against the pillows with his arms wrapped tightly around Daisy and she snuggled into his side as the news sunk in for both of them. 

“I meant what I said earlier,” Daniel said softly, finally breaking the silence. 

“I know.”

“We’re together on this.”

“I know.” 

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Daniel, I know.”

“Good,” he said, reassured that she wasn’t going to shut him out. “So what’s next?”

“I need to call Mack and tell him so he can make plans for our return. Once we have our orders from him I’ll tell the team and brief them on the changes in our mission plans. I want to tell Kora first though, she deserves to hear it from me separately rather than in front of the whole group.” 

“Okay. Do you want me to go get her?” 

“Soon.” She paused, almost hesitant, and pulled away slightly from their embrace to look him in the eyes. “But for now could we maybe just stay here like this? Just the two of us?” 

“Of course,” he smiled softly, fear and pain and uncertainty etched into the creases around his eyes. “One thing though,” he said, just as she was laying her head back on his shoulder. 

“Yeah?”

“I know everything’s much more advanced now and I still don’t even know half of what’s been discovered since ‘55, but please tell me a cure for cancer is one of those things they’ve figured out by now.” 

Daisy pulled herself out of his arms and shifted so she was sitting crossed legged in front of him.

“Daniel, I don’t know how much was known about it in the 50s, but—” 

“Nothing,” he jumped in, his words tumbling out as panic . “Well, next to nothing. We— we could diagnose it and there were a few experimental drugs, but usually no one lasted more than a few weeks after finding out. Jemma’s reaction told me it’s going to be hard but just please tell me I have more than a few weeks left with you. I’m not ready to say goodbye, I can’t—”

“Daniel!” Daisy cut him off mid-ramble. 

“Yeah?” 

“Calm down a minute.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry,” he muttered, shaking his head. 

“We still haven’t found a cure, but there are a lot of really advanced treatment options now and I know as soon as we get back to Earth Dr. Dr. Jemma Simmons will have plenty of tests and treatments waiting for me.” 

“And you’re going to fight it?” 

“As hard as ever.” She wiped away a stray tear from his cheek. “I promise.” 

“I know. I love you.” 

“I love you too,” she replied, kissing him softly. “Now can you go get Kora for me? I can’t keep putting off telling her. And I need to find my laptop so I can contact Mack about finding a time to video chat. I know he would want to hear about something like this face to face rather than over a phone call.” 

“I can find your laptop for you after I get Kora. You should be resting.” 

“Thank you for the thought, but I’m having a good day, remember?” She smiled, knowing he was only trying to help. “Please, let me have these small amounts of control. While I still can.”

“Of course,” he nodded understandingly, giving her one last peck before rising from their bed and leaving the room to fetch the requested person. 

Daisy stood up slowly, steading herself, and began to search the room for her laptop, trying to figure out how she was supposed to tell Kora, how she was supposed to tell Mack. The news hadn’t even fully sunk in for herself, and she knew that she was, as usual, purposely distracting herself from thinking too hard about what it would really mean for her future. 

Once she located her laptop, she pulled up her email and started a message to Mack. 

Hey Mack, 

You available for a video chat about three hours from now? I know it’ll be after hours and you hate bringing the job into the home but it’s a bit of an emergency and there are changes to the current mission I need to discuss with you ASAP. 

Love you, 

D

Send. 

That part was easy enough. It was just an email. Just a video chat. She could just pretend they were talking about anything. But once the call started, she would have to tell him, the man who had become like a brother to her, and she didn’t know how she could do it. 

She didn’t have much time to consider her words, as Kora poked her head around the doorframe, knocking lightly. 

“Hey, Daniel said you had something you wanted to talk to me about.”

“Yeah, come in and sit,” Daisy tried to smile, patting the spot on the bed beside her. 

Kora followed her lead, perching tensely on the mattress. 

“It’s your bloodwork, right?” she asked, right off the bat. “Jemma sent you the result.”

“Yeah, she did.”

“You’re not pregnant.” It was more of a statement than a question. 

“No. What gave it away?” Daisy tried to joke. 

“I don’t know, might be because Danny Boy looks like he can’t tell if he wants to punch a hole through a wall or burst into tears.”

“Yeah, I guess that would do it.” 

“So it’s bad, right?” Kora asked. “I don’t think he’d be reacting that way if everything was fine. And you clearly haven’t been fine.” 

“We don’t know much yet. But the sample we sent to Jemma shows that—“ 

Just rip off the bandaid, Quake. Daisy thought to herself. 

“It shows that I have cancer,” she finished. 

Silence filled the room for several seconds. 

“Kora, please say something.” 

“Why is that so bad?” 

That wasn’t the response Daisy had been expecting. 

“I’m sorry, what? Did you hear what I said?” 

“Yeah, you have cancer, I heard. But can’t they just heal you?” 

“Kora, it’s not that simple. Science hasn’t been able to solve this one just yet.” 

“Oh, my god,” Kora whispered, a look of realization coming across her face. “I totally forgot. I’m still just so used to how things were at Afterlife.”

“Wait, you mean they had a cure for cancer at Afterlife?” Daisy asked, confusion mixing with the smallest bit of hope in her chest. If they had already discovered a cure there, maybe there was a chance it was still out there somewhere. 

“Our mom. She was the cure.” 

Daisy’s heart sank again. Of course. Her mother would have been able to cure people with her healing powers.

“That would make sense,” she muttered. “Well there are treatments now. But it won’t be easy.” 

A loud silence covered the room. 

“So all that radiation from when you died. I wasn’t able to draw it out of you. And it caused this,” Kora finally whispered, looking down at her hands. 

“No,” Daisy started, before backtracking slightly. “Well, yes, technically. The radiation did cause it. But that wasn’t your fault. You brought me back from the dead. You saved my life. Now it’s my turn to fight for it.” 

“I’m going to help you,” Kora said determinedly, looking up into his sister’s eyes. “Fight, I mean. I’m going to be beside you the whole time.” 

“I know you will.” 

“That’s what sister superhero squads are for,” Kora said with a smile. 

It was hard, after that, to go about the rest of their day acting like nothing was wrong. Daisy didn't want to tell the rest of her team until she had official word from Mack as to what their new orders were, and she planned to talk with him after dinner. 

The team tried to eat at least one meal a day together, to establish some sense of normalcy out in the vacuum of space, but this meal hardly felt normal to Daisy. She knew that the rest of her crew could sense that something was wrong, without her even saying anything. Kora kept looking over at her from across the table, and Daniel held her hand tightly under the table the whole meal, needing that physical contact to keep reassuring himself that she wasn’t going anywhere. But all she could think about as she picked at her food and pushed it around her plate was her upcoming conversation with Mack. 

As soon as the uneasy dinner gathering concluded, Daisy excused herself and closed herself away in her and Daniel’s bunk to call Mack. Daniel followed her there, sitting on the bed beside her as she pulled up their video conference program. It may technically be a personal call, but since they would be talking about new mission parameters they had agreed that as Captain and Second in Command, they should both be there. Daisy was glad he offered up that reasoning, because she wanted him there for moral support when she actually told Mack, although she would never admit that out loud. He squeezed her hand tightly in his as they watched the loading circle spin, waiting for the call to connect back to earth. 

The screen lit up, and Daisy’s face did too. For just a moment she allowed herself to forget why she was calling when she saw her old partner’s face appear on the screen. They texted constantly and called whenever they could, but seeing his face always felt good. 

“Tremors!” He said with a smile. 

“Director,” she said, returning the expression. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind the thought occurred that she would be seeing him face to face soon, would finally be able to hug him again. 

“So what have you got for me?” He asked, getting right down to business. Neither of them took offense to it, he was at home now, and whenever possible he tried to keep S.H.I.E.L.D. time S.H.I.E.L.D. time and home time family time. “You said you had some changes that would need to be made to the mission, is everything going okay up there?” 

“Up here things are fine, we’re loving space.” 

Daisy knew she was beating around the bush, and from the look that Daniel gave her and the way he squeezed her hand, he knew too. 

“It’s actually a more personal issue,” she continued awkwardly. “But it’s going to be affecting the mission pretty significantly.” 

“Tremors, what’s going on?” Mack could sense her apprehension from through the screen. 

“Umm, is Yoyo there? I think it’d be easier to tell both of you at the same time.” 

Mack’s face grew even more confused and concerned, but he nodded and started to get up from his chair, quickly saying, “I’ll go get her.” 

Daniel stole a quick glance over at his girlfriend, who was staring blankly at the screen, and he knew she was spacing, trying not to think about the conversation that was about to happen. He knew that telling her family wasn’t something that he could necessarily help her with, so he just squeezed her hand tighter in his to remind her that he would be by her side the whole time. 

“Daisy, Daniel, hey,” Yoyo said with a smile as she and Mack sat down in front of the camera. “It’s good to see you guys again.” 

“You too, Yoyo,” Daniel replied for both of them. 

“So what is it you need to talk to us about?” 

Daisy took a deep breath and looked over at Daniel, who nodded encouragingly. 

“Okay,” she started, “So a little while ago I started to get really sick. And so we sent Simmons a blood sample to analyze, and it came back with some bad results.” 

They saw Mack and Yoyo grab onto each other’s hand, offering one another support in the same way as Daniel was to Daisy, as they listened intently, nodding for Daisy to continue. 

“Um, the radiation exposure from my fight with Malick and blowing up the Chronicom ships, it’s caused… Ugh, I don’t know how to say this.” She paused, shaking her head in resignation. “I have cancer.” 

“Dios, mío,” Elena whispered. 

Mack just sat there, shell shocked. 

“Jemma told us when we got the results back that we need to get to the nearest jump point and get back to earth as soon as possible so she can run some secondary testing and start treatments,” Daniel continued for Daisy, as she nodded. 

“We need official permission from you as Director to terminate the current mission and return back to base,” Daisy continued, trying to keep the conversation on protocols so she could get through it. She still had to finish this conversation, tell her team, and arrange for emergency jump procedures. Once all that was finished and she and Daniel were alone in bed she would allow herself to process and maybe break down, but for now she had a job to do. 

“Mack,” Elena whispered, nudging him. “Did you hear what she said?” 

“Yeah, Tremors. I’ll— I’ll arrange for access to the jump point for first thing tomorrow,” Mack finally said. “That’ll put you landing back on earth about 42 hours from now if you touch down at The Lighthouse.” 

“That works for us,” Daniel said. 

“I’ll be waiting there for you when you land, from there we’ll take a helicarrier to our medical facility in D.C.,” Mack continued.  
  


“Mack, you have other things to be doing, more important things—” Daisy started, before Mack cut her off. 

“No. You are my family. There’s nothing in S.H.I.E.L.D. that is more important than that.” 

Daisy looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since beginning the call, and saw the pain he wore on his face, making no effort to hide it. She never liked seeing her family sad or hurting because of her, but it seemed like this was something she was going to have to learn to get used to pretty soon. 

“Okay,” she accepted, nodding with a small, tight lipped smile. “I’ll see you in a few days.” 

“Okay, Tremors. See you soon.” 

“We love you guys. Hasta luego,” Yoyo blew a kiss across the screen and Daisy and Daniel both waved as the connection ended and they were alone again. 

They gathered the team and told them over ice cream in the ship’s dining area. It came as a shock and a blow to them all, but it was an answer, a reason for what was going on with their captain, and anything good came from that day it was that at least now everyone had answers. With new orders for how to proceed and the information regarding her diagnosis they worked out a new agenda for the next few days, and other crewmates contacted family and friends back home to arrange for plans post-debrief at S.H.I.E.L.D. Most of them would be returning with Daisy, Daniel, and Kora to HQ in Washington D.C., but a few would be hitching rides home or to other bases after landing. 

After such a long and emotionally brutal day like the one they had one would think they would drop right off to sleep as soon as they hit the bed, but by the time they had finished making arrangements for the rest of their team and finally collapsed into bed, Daisy and Daniel just laid in the darkness, arms wrapped around each other and staring into the darkness and silence of their bunk. 

Daniel ran his hand repeatedly through Daisy’s long hair, down and back up, and down and back up, and she nestled as close as she possibly could into his side. 

“We’re going home, Agent Johnson,” he mumbled into the darkness, planting a feather light kiss at her hairline. “We’re going home.” 


	4. Meanwhile on Earth...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okayyyy so this chapter is a little different so before we start lemme explain a bit. 
> 
> So this is like three shorter scenes, all happening in the same day as the last chapter, but from different location povs than the last one (which was on Z-3). 
> 
> It starts with the Fitzsimmons family, and then to Mackelena, and then to May. So, yes. Here it is.

\- **FITZSIMMONS** -

  
“Jem!” Fitz called from the top of the stairs of their basement lab. “I’m leaving to take Alya to school, is there anything you need me to get while I’m out?” 

When no response came he assumed she was just heavily invested in whatever she was working on, so he called for her again. When she didn’t respond again, he went down the stairs to check on her, only to find her staring blankly at a tablet screen. 

“Jemma? Is everything okay?” 

“You were supposed to see this coming,” she whispered, barely audible with her back still turned to him.

“To see  _ what _ coming, Jem? What are you talking about?” 

“Daisy sent me a blood sample earlier this week,” she finally said, turning around to face him. “She thought she was pregnant.”

“And?” He waited for her answer. “Is she?” 

Jemma handed him the tablet with the results and watched as he paused to read the screen. 

“Bloody hell,” he mumbled. “Leukemia?” 

“You saw it,” Jemma cried, near hysterics. “You saw the future, just please tell me she’ll be okay!” 

“I don’t know, Jem, I didn’t see this far.”

“You didn’t look past the fight? To make sure everyone would be okay?” 

“You didn’t want me to! You were terrified that the timestream would fry my bloody brain!” He knew neither of them was angry, just both in shock and that suppressing their frustration and stress would only backfire in the long run. “I looked just long enough to see that Kora would  _ most likely _ be able to bring Daisy back, and after that our problems would all be over. Daisy destroys Malick and the Chronicoms, Kora brings Daisy back, happy ending.” 

“Yeah, well the ending wasn’t supposed to happen yet!” Jemma finally burst into tears. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. She can’t go this way.” 

Fitz wrapped her in his arms and held her tight as she repeated over and over again, “she can’t go, she can’t go.” 

He was reminded sickeningly of when she had to say goodbye to him and Alya before departing for their final mission. 

Still holding onto each other, they sank together to the floor of their lab and Jemma nuzzled her head into the crook of his shoulder. 

“Jem, I’m going to call the neighbor and ask her to take Alya to school, and then I’ll come right back down and we can start preparing treatment plans and options, okay? But we need to get our daughter to school and you need to call Daisy and tell her. Okay?” 

Jemma nodded, pulling away and wiping her eyes. She drew in a deep breath to compose herself and stood up. 

“I’ll call while you figure out Alya’s ride. And then we'll get started.” 

Fitz nodded, standing up after her and starting toward the stairs, before turning back for a moment. “We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure she gets through this,” he assured his wife. 

“I know. We have to,” she said, her face set in determination. 

—

\- **MACK & YOYO **-

The video call switched off and Mack and Yoyo sat in silence, hands clasped tightly together between them. 

“God, I didn’t know what I was expecting when she emailed but it wasn’t that. Sousa texted me a few weeks back saying she had been feeling under the weather, but  _ this _ ?  _ Cancer _ ?” 

“I know,” Elena whispered, leaning further into Mack’s side. 

“I just don’t know what we’re going to do,” he whispered. 

“We’re going to have faith,” she said. “We’re going to have faith in God, and we’re going to have faith in Daisy. She’s strong.” 

“That she is. She’s just been through so much, and I thought maybe, just maybe, she finally got her happy ending.”   
  


“She has. But she’ll have us to lean on for support, always. Even through this.” She paused, going back to revise her statement. “ _ Especially _ through this.” 

“Doesn’t make it any easier,” Mack muttered. “She’s my little sister. I don’t want to watch her go through this.” 

“I know. I don’t either. But she needs us now, more than ever.” 

—

\- **MAY** \-   
  


May had just finished her last lecture of the day and was scrolling through her phone, catching up on the notifications she had missed. It was mostly emails from students, a video of a bird on the Cayman Islands from Coulson, and a message from Flint bugging her yet again about when he could go back into the field. 

A text from Daisy caught her eye, and she smiled. She knew that her daughter was living her mission with Kora, Daniel, and their team in space, but she did miss seeing her every day like she used to. 

She opened the message and read it, suddenly confused. 

_ We’re turning back and coming home, landing at the Lighthouse two days from now and heading from there to D.C. Any way we can meet up when we get back?  _

The mission was supposed to go on for another 11 months. Something had clearly happened for them to abort the mission so early. 

_ What’s with the change of plan? Is everything okay?  _

It only took a few minutes for the reply to pop up, reading, 

_ I’ll tell you about it when we get back to earth.  _

That was oddly cryptic, especially for Daisy. She wasn’t normally one to find things “too important” to say over the phone or by text. Sousa must really be rubbing off on her. 

It suddenly occurred to May, as she reread Daisy’s reply, that she didn’t specify or reassure that everything was okay.  _ That _ was something Daisy would do if there was really nothing to worry about, even if the news was something she wanted to share face to face. 

A feeling of dread settled in the pit of her stomach. She knew that if Daisy wanted to tell her in person, then she would respect that wish and just a wait a few more days to find out rather than pressing harder. But she also knew that the possibilities of what was going on would eat at her until she knew. 

Clearing her schedule for two days from now, she made sure that no matter what time the Z-3 squad landed back in D.C., she would be there to greet them off the quinjet. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also the general consensus for the poll on longer chapters once a week vs. shorter chapters twice a week was an exact 50/50 split so I’m just going to do at least one a week, and maybe more on a case by case basis depending on how many chapters I have written in advance.


	5. Mission Incompletion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I live in the USA so the next update could go one of two ways - either I write a ton to distract me from freaking out about the election, or I’m so freaked out by the election that I can’t bring myself to write so.... if there’s a chapter up by Sunday you’ll know which one I went with. 
> 
> To my fellow American friends, please stay safe this is a scary time <3

Of course, it was just their luck that the next day, when they were meant to be packing up their things to move out of Z-3, turned out to be one of Daisy’s worst days yet. 

Her eyes blurred open at 5:34AM, waves of nausea rolling over her, but with her body so exhausted she couldn’t find the energy to pull herself from the bed to find the toilet. She swatted weakly at Daniel to try to wake him, but he just rolled over sleepily, blinking in the dark of the ship’s simulated early morning, not quite getting the message Daisy was trying to convey. 

“Daniel,” she moaned. 

“Hmmm?”

“I’m gonna be sick,” she said, covering her mouth and trying to sit up and get out of the bed, only to fall backwards onto the pillow, dizziness and fatigued muscles not allowing her to rush to the bathroom as she felt she needed to. 

“Shit,” Daniel whispered, suddenly wide awake, jumping out of bed to try to carry Daisy into the bathroom. It was too late, and he only got to her in time to hold her hair back and she leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited onto the floor of their bunk. 

“Damn it,” she coughed, her hand over her mouth as she rolled back over onto her back. “I’m sorry.” 

“No. You’re not allowed to apologize.” 

“But—”

“No. You didn’t choose this, you can’t control this, therefore you’re not allowed to apologize.” 

“Okay,” she agreed, finding no valid arguments or energy to come back at him with. 

“Are you okay for now?” He asked, smoothing her hair away from her face. 

“I think so.”

“Okay, just lay here for a moment, I’m going to go get you a bucket in case you get sick again and some stuff to clean this up,” he said, standing up with a gesture to the vomit on the ground. 

Daisy only nodded in return, closing her eyes to keep the room from spinning. 

With a kiss to her forehead, Daniel exited the room and started down the hallway to find the ship’s cleaning supplies. 

Walking past the gathering area, he saw Kora with a mat stretched out on the floor, going through the smooth motions of a tai chi routine. May had offered to teach her during her time at Coulson Academy, and it became their little daily routine, just as it had been for May and Daisy back when May was her S.O. and Daisy had still been Skye. For the first few months of their mission, Daisy and Kora had made a routine of it together every morning, and Kora it seemed, had continued even after Daisy was no longer up for it. 

She stopped when she saw Daniel coming down the hallway, grabbing her water bottle to take a drink as she met up with him. 

“You’re up early,” she commented. “You guys aren’t starting to pack up already, are you?” 

“No, seems like I’ll be the only one packing today. I’m on my way to find some supplies to clean the vomit that’s currently covering our floor.” 

“Did she get sick in her sleep?”

“No, couldn’t lift herself out of bed to get to the bathroom, and I didn’t wake up fast enough to carry her there,” Daniel told her. 

“Damn.”

“Yeah.” 

They both fell silent for a minute as they reached the closet and Kora knelt down to gather paper towels, disinfectant spray, and small trash bags to hand up to Daniel. 

They started back to the bunk in silent worry, cleaning supplies in hand. 

“She’ll be okay, right?” Kora asked, stopping once they were outside the bunk door. 

“You’re not talking about just right now, are you?” 

She gave him a look as if to point out how obvious the answer to that would be. “No, you know what I mean. It’s just that growing up we had a few cases of cancer at Afterlife, but my mom was a healer, literally, her inhuman abilities allowed her to completely cure them with no effort. And now I’m here, out in the  _ real human world _ and I know nothing about what this disease does or how it’s treated, all I know is that my sister could be dying and  _ I don’t know how to handle it _ ,” she said in a rush. 

Daniel sighed. “I’m not much better off than you, but I’m on the opposite side of the spectrum,” he admitted, looking down. “In my time a cancer diagnosis was a death sentence. And considering how fast everything else progressed from 1955 to 2020, I was hoping this would be one thing they could cure by now, but when Jemma told us the results she was absolutely  _ devastated _ . And Daisy told me right after we found out that it’s not an automatic death sentence, but depending on the type and progression it can be. I’m trying to stay calm and roll with the punches because that’s what Daisy needs from me right now, but I have  _ no idea  _ what to expect when we land, and what the future is going to hold for us.” 

“We’ll learn together, I guess. As usual,” Kora said, making eye contact with the man who had become like a brother to her as they learned to navigate the 21st century together. 

“As usual,” he returned a forced smile, turning to grab the door handle. 

“I’ll stop by later today to check on her then,” Kora said, finally turning the conversation. “Text me if you need anything, I'll be packing for most of the day.” 

“Will do,” Daniel said, as she started to walk down the hallway. “And Kora—” She turned back to look at him. 

“We’ll both be here to support Daisy through this, no matter what, but you and I? We can be there for each other too.” 

She gave him a weak smile before turning back to walk toward her own bunk. He entered his and Daisy’s bunk to find her fast asleep again, much to his relief. If she was sleeping, then at least she wasn’t in pain. He knew as soon as she woke up the nausea, headaches, chills, and fatigue would crash over her like a bus. 

He went to work cleaning up the sick from the floor as quickly and as quietly as possible, but after a few minutes he looked up from the floor, feeling a pair of eyes watching him from the bed. 

“Morning,” he said, trying his best to keep the concern off his face. “How are you feeling? Be honest.” 

“Honest? I feel like shit,” she mumbled, pulling the bed covers tighter around herself as she shivered, despite the consistent temperature regulation on the ship. “And I know it’s just going to keep getting worse.” 

Daniel finished up the cleaning and put the bag with the used paper towels by the door, before toeing off his shoes and sliding back into bed beside Daisy. She automatically curled herself into his side. 

“What do you mean it’ll get worse?” He asked, still unsure about what the modern medical procedures for cancer would entail. “Isn’t the point of the treatment you’re getting back on earth to help you get better?” 

“Yes and no,” she started, glancing up at him to see the confusion in his eyes. “The point of the treatment is to kill the cancer. But it’ll make me really really sick in the process. I don’t just have to beat the cancer, I have to beat the treatment too.” 

“So we’ve got a long road ahead of us, eh?” 

“Yeah,” she said, comforted by his use of  _ we _ . “We do.” 

Daniel stroked her hair in silence for a while, until he felt her breathing even out and her muscles relax, letting him know she had fallen back asleep. Slowly untangling himself from her and tucking the blankets closer around her, he got up to start moving clothes and books from the room into suitcases to move off of the ship and back into their currently vacant apartment in D.C. 

One of the first things they did after Daisy was officially cleared off the risk of radiation sickness was to find a place to staff off of the base. Neither of them had any intention of leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., but after both of them literally gave their lives to the organization, they were ready to build some little bit of life outside it. So they moved their few personal belongings into a two bedroom apartment about twenty minutes outside the new S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters where they were both stationed. Kora joined them in living out of their spare room for about a month between graduating from her basic training at Coulson Academy and leaving for the mission with S.W.O.R.D. That apartment had been sitting empty for nearly six months at this point, and Daniel shuddered to think about the amount of dust that must have built up over that amount of time. 

Just as he was finishing folding their shirts, Daisy stirred again, her face crumpling into a grimace of discomfort. Daniel rushed back over to her side, always ready to help in whatever way he could. 

“Do you need help getting to the bathroom?”

“No, I don’t think so. Everything just… aches,” she groaned.

“I’m sorry. Are you feeling up to eating anything yet?” He asked, knowing she wouldn’t want him lingering on her pain because even now, she had trouble distinguishing pity from concern. 

“No,” she answered quickly. 

“You need to eat at some point,” he reminded her softly. He knew she couldn't help that she was having trouble keeping anything solid down, but he didn’t like how thin she’d gotten in the past few months. 

“I know, I will, just give me a little bit. This morning was worse than usual.” She paused, before quickly changing the subject. “I’m sorry you have to pack alone.” Daniel raised his eyebrows at her to let her know that he knew exactly what she was doing, but didn’t feel like arguing. 

“We talked about the apologizing. Not allowed.” 

“Right.” She forced a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Well,  _ thank you _ then. For doing the packing.” 

“You’re very welcome.” 

The next two days went by with very little excitement. Kora spent time hanging out in Daisy and Daniel’s bunk later that afternoon, watching Netflix with her sister while Daniel helped figure out some things with the rest of their team. Daisy wasn’t feeling well again the next day, but she felt okay enough to sit in the galley with the rest of the team as they played board games and watched movies, determined to spend their last day together having fun. It was nice, laughing and spending that last little bit of time together, even knowing that they were supposed to have another 11 months together, not a single day. 

Just as Daisy won at Mario Kart yet again, Diaz looked up toward the window at the cockpit, announcing, “Guys. Looks like we’re just about home.” 

Sure enough, as everyone turned to look where she had pointed, the blue and green of earth became visible in the view through the window. 

“I guess the party’s over,” Daisy said sadly. “Before we get into position for landing, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for joining and sticking with this mission, and I’m truly sorry that it got cut short so soon. Anything any of you need, whether it’s requesting an assignment, or time off, or a transfer, anything at all. Let me know. I’ll give my recommendations and put in a good word with the Director for any one of you.” 

“Thanks, Johnson,” Agent Miller said with a smile. “You focus on getting better and maybe we’ll find ourselves back out here with you finishing the mission someday.” 

Everyone nodded in agreement and Daisy smiled. This was a good team, and she was sorely disappointed that her time with them had ended so soon. 

“Alright! Everyone let’s get back to work. Mission’s not over quite yet, we’ve still got a spaceship to land!” 


	6. I Feel It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s the chapter you’ve all been dreading!

The ramp door of the aircraft opened, and the crew of Zephyr 3 collectively drew in a deep breath of clean, natural, fresh air. It may have only been a few months, but no amount of filtered and oxygenated space air could compare to the real deal. 

“Tremors,” Mack said, stepping into view with his arms held out in front of him, welcoming her in for a hug. She cautiously made her way down the ramp and into his embrace, and he held onto her for what was probably too long, but neither of them minded. 

“Yoyo got called out last minute on an op, but I brought someone along with me,” he said, finally pulling away. 

Stepping to the side, he revealed May standing behind him, smiling. 

“I didn’t want to wait until you guys landed in D.C.,” she admitted. 

Daisy launched herself into May’s arms, squeezing with as much strength as she could find in her exhausted body. Finally stepping back, she could see tears in May’s eyes. 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting soft in your old age,” Daisy said with a small laugh. 

“I’m sorry,” The empath replied with her own small but unconvincing laugh, wiping at her eyes. “You’re just feeling a lot right now.” 

May shuddered at the overwhelming combination of sadness, fear, anxiety, and relief, among other things, that she felt coming off of Daisy. 

“Yeah, well, it’s been a hell of a week.”

“Not to mention a hell of a past few months,” Daniel said, coming up behind Daisy, and wrapping an arm around her waist and she sunk into his side for support. 

“You’re going to have to tell me,” May said, suddenly turning very serious. She could see that something was very wrong with Daisy just from her body language and obvious lack of usual strength, not to mention the feelings she felt off of both her and Sousa. “I can feel it radiating off of both of you. Daisy you’re hesitant and anxious and sad, and Daniel, god, you’re terrified.” She let out a shuddering breath, trying to push the others’ emotions out of her system. 

“I will, just, maybe not right here,” Daisy said. “Let me make sure my team is settled in for their debrief and all know their next moves, and then once we’re on the quinjet on our way to headquarters we’ll talk.” 

“Actually,” Mack cut in, “one of my Lighthouse-based agents will be handling your team’s debrief and reassignment evaluations. Simmons wants you in medical ASAP.” 

“Jemma is in D.C.?” Daisy suddenly turned around, surprised at that. 

“Yeah, she and Fitz flew over last night.” 

“And Alya?” Daniel asked hopefully. The young girl had surprisingly taken quickly to “Uncle Danny” when she finally met the team. They figured it was because Alya’s whole life had been spent hearing bedtime stories about her Aunt Daisy the superhero, and so when she wanted to spend every waking moment by her side once they met, she spent plenty of time around Daniel by extension. Especially when Daisy spent most of the first few months of their relationship on either bedrest or very limited activity, Daniel and Alya made it their mission to keep her company and make sure she wouldn’t get bored, and so the three of them became a tight knit trio. 

“Yeah, they brought her along.” 

Despite her exhaustion, Daisy broke into a grin at that. 

“The sooner we get to D.C. the better,” Mack said, trying not to be pushy but trying to heed Simmons’ request that Daisy be immediately transported to the main S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility attached to the organization’s headquarters. 

“Okay,” Daisy agreed. May and Mack gathered Daisy, Kora, and Daniel’s luggage and began to carry it to the quintet as the three space travelers turned back to the rest of their crew. 

“I guess this is goodbye,” Daisy said sadly. 

“Not for forever,” Diaz reminded her. “You beat this, okay?” 

“I’ll do my best,” Daisy said. 

Hugs were exchanged all around, and they finally headed to the quintet, where May and Mack had already prepped it for flight. 

Daniel got the rest of their luggage while Kora helped Daisy into a seat on the plane, and despite every bone in her body telling her to refuse the help and do it on her own, she was too exhausted to act on it. Daniel took the seat beside her and rested a comforting hand on her knee as she leaned her head onto his shoulder. 

It wasn’t long after take off that May flipped the quinjet to auto pilot and moved from the pilot’s seat toward the back of the plane where the others were sitting. Daisy picked her head up and looked up at May, wanting more than anything to pretend that nothing was wrong and just spend time with her without having to tell her that she was sick. 

Daniel glanced over at her, as if to wordlessly ask,  _ “Do you want me here?”  _

She gave a small smile in return, which he knew to mean,  _ “No thank you, this one I need to do on my own.”  _

At that Daniel stood up and took a seat next to Mack in the cockpit. Kora was on the opposite side of the plane, playing with a zipper on her duffel bag and trying her best to avoid listening to the conversation that she knew was about to happen. 

May took the seat next to Daisy and held her hand, gasping lightly at the flood of emotion that hit her. It wasn’t just apprehension and fear, there was grief mixed with resignation mixed with determination mixed with denial and an uncharacteristic exhaustion and overall weakness in her. 

“I wish you could read minds, not just emotions,” Daisy said softly. “I don’t want to have to keep telling people. I don’t want to have to tell  _ you _ .” 

“You’re allowed to take your time,” May replied. 

“No, I’m not. Not anymore, not when I don’t know how much time I have.” 

May couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath at that statement, but she didn’t say anything, waiting for Daisy to continue at her own pace. 

“I was exposed to a lot of radiation during and after my fight with Malick,” she began slowly. 

The mention of  _ radiation _ made everything click in May’s mind. She was well aware of what radiation did to a person. Without her having to say the words, May knew the diagnosis, and her heart sank to the pit of her stomach. 

“And I’m sure you’ve realized by now that I’ve gotten pretty sick in the past few months. And so we sent Jemma a blood sample and she ran some tests,” Daisy continued, leaving out the part where they were hoping for the news of new life but instead received news of pain and death. 

Up until this point May had been trying to look at Daisy’s face, only to have her avoid looking back by staring intently at their joined hands. She suddenly looked up directly into May’s eyes, revealing the tears building up in her own. 

“I think I know,” May whispered, blinking back tears of her own. She didn’t even care to determine if they were from feeling Daisy’s pain or through her own realization, and honestly, that’s the last thing on her mind at the moment. “If you don’t want to say it, don’t. I understand what you’re trying to tell me.” 

She gently pulled Daisy down so she was laying across the seats with her head in her lap and began to stroke her hair, as the tears she could tell she had been holding in for days finally came spilling out. 

“I’m scared, May,” she sobbed. “Physical enemies I can handle, things to punch and quake and shoot. I was trained for that. But this is all new and different. I was trained to fight but this is a battle I have no idea how to win.” 

May decided that this wasn’t a situation that needed her advice or words of encouragement. Daisy just needed  _ her _ . 

She wasn’t sure how long they sat there that way, tears streaming down both of their faces, but eventually May felt a sudden calmness, and realized that Daisy had fallen asleep in her lap. 

“I can feel your uneasiness from here,” May called softly to Kora across the plane, careful not to wake Daisy up. “Anything you want to get off your chest?” 

In Kora’s time at the academy, she and May had gotten very close. As one of the few people who knew the truth about Kora’s past and how she came to be a part of S.H.I.E.L.D., May took it upon herself to take Kora under her wing and mentor her. She wore her emotions on her sleeve, almost as much as Daisy had when they were on the Bus and she was still Skye the hacker, and Kora was the student who helped her realize that she could use her empathic abilities to truly help her students in a way other professors couldn’t. Through all their time together, much like she did for Daisy, May easily became the young agent’s stand-in mother figure.

Kora sighed, trying to gather her thoughts. “It’s just, I don’t really know how any of this works. This wasn’t something we dealt with growing up at Afterlife. And so all I know is that my sister is really sick, and everyone around me is upset and afraid and  _ I don’t know what any of this means. _ ” 

“I’m sorry,” May said, after thinking for a moment. “Once we get back to base I’ll be sure to set you up with some resources to educate you on the topic. And I’m sure Jemma would be more than willing to explain things to you.” 

“I know. I’d appreciate that. I think Daniel would like that too, he was explaining to me earlier that he has no idea what to expect from the modern world in this area, and I know you can feel his fear.” 

“I’ll be sure to get him some too, then.” 

May looked down at Daisy, who was still sleeping, and stroked her fingers through her hair. They had about thirty minutes to go on the flight to D.C., and was hoping she would stay asleep until they arrived, knowing that once they got there it would be all tests and bloodwork and scans for the next several hours. 

It crushed her heart to think about how this poor girl, still so young, had been put through so much already. Who knows what the future could pitch against her next? This one certainly wouldn’t be easy on anyone. 


	7. Testing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one kinda has a lot of medical talk and stuff. I have this slight obsession with making any and all medical stories I write really detailed and scientifically accurate, I really love doing random research and stuff....

“Aunt Daisy!” 

Six year old Alya’s high pitch squeal jolted Daisy awake, and she tried to sit up quickly, only to sway forwards, almost falling off the seat before May grabbed her around the shoulders to steady her. A silver blonde head ran into view and stopped suddenly in front of her, as if scared that she would hurt her. 

“Hey my little hero,” Daisy croaked out with a small smile, her voice still hoarse from her conversation with May. 

“Can I give you a hug, Aunt Daisy?” She asked, making Daisy’s smile grow. “Mama and Daddy said you are very sick and I have to be gentle, but are hugs gentle enough?”

“Hugs are perfect,” she said, opening her arms for the little girl to come crashing into them. She looked over Alya’s head to her best friends standing not far behind, waiting patiently for their daughter to finish her “turn” with Aunt Daisy. 

She finally pulled away and looked earnestly up into Daisy’s eyes. “Mama and Daddy have been in the lab for almost  _ two whole days _ doing research and they are going to make you all better. I’m just sure of it.” 

“If anyone can, it’s your parents.” 

Alya stepped away to move onto greetings for the other people on the quinjet, and Jemma and Fitz each moved in to hug Daisy as tightly as they dared. 

“She’s not lying,” Fitz said as he pulled away. “We’ve been running as many simulations as we can think of, trying to be sure that conventional treatment would work with your combination of Inhuman DNA and Kree blood.”

“We’ve temporarily transferred back here to the States, at least for the first couple months of your treatment,” Jemma told her. “We don’t want to send you to a normal hospital until we know for sure exactly how your powers and your unusual blood type will react to chemotherapy, but most of the doctors here at S.H.I.E.L.D. were trained for stitching stab wounds and digging out bullets, not handling cancer treatment.” 

Fitz nodded, adding, “This way, we can advise the medical team, make sure they fully understand what they need to be doing.” 

“ _ And _ I’ll be able to spend extra time with you guys, make new memories,” Daisy said seriously. “Just in case.” 

“No,” Mack suddenly cut in, as he and Daniel came from the front of the quinjet to join the trio, Alya clinging to Daniel’s neck in a bear hug as he carried her small frame easily. “We’re not thinking like that.” 

Daisy just looked toward the ground, not wanting to start an argument like that here, in front of her young niece. She had no intentions of giving up this fight, but she couldn’t help but begin to mentally set things up for the  _ just in case _ , because they were in unfamiliar territory now, and anything could happen. 

“Let’s get moving, eh?” Fitz finally said, clearing the uneasy silence that had settled over the group. Daniel handed Alya off to Mack, who swung her up so she was sitting atop his broad shoulders, so he could help Daisy up from the seat she was still sitting in. He wrapped a steady arm around waist from one side, and Jemma came around the other side, bracing her at the elbow and helping her make her way toward the building’s laboratories. 

“Now, I know you probably want to just go home to your place and sleep, but I’d like to get a few more preliminary tests out of the way so I can solidify treatment plans tonight,” Jemma told her as they walked. “I’d like to start as soon as possible, a month or two ago would have been ideal, but considering you were just starting to display symptoms, tomorrow morning will have to do. Acute Myeloid Leukemia is aggressive and fast growing, and I want to be sure that we don’t waste any time.” 

Daisy nodded numbly. She was becoming more and more exhausted from the trip as each minute went by, and she zoned out as Jemma rattled on about the different tests she had to run and what she would need to do for them. 

Suddenly becoming very aware of the many people in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Daisy looked up from the floor to see the eyes of practically every agent on her. She tried to push Daniel and Jemma away from her side where they were helping her, only to stumble as her weak and aching muscles tried to carry her on their own. 

“God, Dais, what are you doing?” Daniel said, catching her quickly. 

“They’re all watching me,” she whispered, so quiet he could hardly hear. He hadn’t noticed, so focused on supporting her and clinging to every word Jemma said, but he looked up tp see that they had, in fact, drawn quite a bit of attention from their fellow agents. 

“It’s just because you’re you. Quake is like a celebrity around here,” he tried reassuring her, to no avail. 

“It’s because I’m weak. They can all see it.” 

“We can get you a wheelchair if you want, we’d get to the labs faster and you wouldn’t need us practically carrying you,” Jemma offered. 

“No!” Daisy said harshly, taking both Jemma and Daniel slightly aback. “Sorry, I just— I need to do this. I need to prove that I’m strong enough.” 

“You don’t need to prove yourself to anybody.”

“I do. I need to prove to  _ myself _ . I need to know that I can still do this, even if I need someone to lean on.” 

Daniel and Jemma both sighed, knowing they couldn't change her mind, but both silently agreed to carry a bit more of Daisy’s weight and move just a bit quicker, trying to move her out of the prying eyes of the rest of the agency. 

They finally reached the lab, where Fitz had gone ahead and was waiting with the machines prepped. Daisy laid in the hospital bed, quiet and uncomplaining as Jemma took several vials of blood and Fitz darted back and forth around the bed, using his hand-held scanners to take practically every kind of scan possible. 

Daisy was hardly paying attention to the two scientists buzzing about her bed, but Daniel and Jemma noticed immediately when Fitz let out an audible sigh of what seemed to be relief. 

“Did you find something?” Daniel asked. 

“No, I didn’t,” Fitz said, as if that were to explain anything. “Oh! Right!” He exclaimed, suddenly realizing that Daniel and Daisy were looking expectantly at him. “I was scanning for tumors or any other large masses of build of cells, and I haven’t come up with any, which is really great.” 

“That is very good news,” Jemma confirmed. “I was a bit worried about myeloid sarcomas, but if the scans are clear for now then we may have gotten to it sooner than I thought. That means just the bone marrow aspiration, biopsy, and spinal tap to do, but I’ll want to do the marrow exam and spinal tap at least a few days apart, they are unpleasant enough one at a time, I don’t want to put you through both at once.” 

Daisy and Daniel both stared at her as if she had three heads, not understanding most of the medical jargon and just trusting that Jemma knew what she was talking about. 

“For all the advanced medical technology we’ve developed at S.H.I.E.L.D., somehow bone marrow exams were never on the list, so most of this will be about the same as if you were to get this done in a normal hospital” Jemma rambled on, trying to keep conversations up so that the uneasy silence wouldn't take over. “Daisy, I have one last sample to take, but this one is a little more complicated. Do you want local or general anesthesia?” 

“No, thank you,” Daisy answered, misunderstanding the question. 

“It wasn’t a ‘do you want it?’, it’s a ‘which one do you want?’,” Fitz clarified for her. “You’ve got to get one or the other. 

Daisy groaned. She always hated anesthesia of any kind. “Local, I guess.” If she needed to pick, she at least wanted the one where she was still awake and could know what was going on. 

Jemma had her roll onto her side and administered the numbing drug, before pulling out two complicated looking syringes with giant needles attached to them. 

“What the hell are those for?” Daniel suddenly asked, for the first time questioning the medical procedures going on around him. 

“These will take samples of the bone marrow so we can see how advanced the cancer is, as well as have something to compare to once we start treatment to see if it is working,” Jemma explained. “This first one will take a liquid marrow sample, and the second one will take a solid sample.” 

Despite the numbing medications, Daisy felt a sharp stinging in her side as Jemma inserted the needle and instinctively reached out to grab Daniel’s hand. After a few minutes Jemma switched out the needles, and after another few minutes, she was removing it again and placing a bandage over the area and Daisy loosened her grip on Daniel’s hand. 

“Now, I’m sure you want nothing more than to go home and take a shower or hot bath, but you need to keep this injection site completely dry for 24 hours.” 

Another groan. 

“Go home, eat, sleep, and come back in the morning, say 10 o’clock, so we can talk over the plan we’ll build tonight and begin treatments tomorrow,” Jemma instructed her. She looked directly at Daniel, saying, “Make sure she gets plenty of rest tonight.” 

“Oh, I don’t we’ll need to worry too much about that,” he said, looking over to Daisy where she was struggling to keep her eyes open anyway. “I really think you should use the wheelchair to get back to our apartment,” he said, looking right at Daisy. 

By this point she was so exhausted she forgot to argue. 

“I’ll have Kora pull the car around the emergency lab exit, that way you don’t have to go through the entirety of headquarters again,” Fitz said, picking up his phone to call Daisy’s sister. 

Daniel put one arm around Daisy's shoulders and another under her knees, carefully lifting her into the wheelchair as Jemma held it steady. 

He  _ knew _ she was sick, had thought of nothing but since she started showing symptoms, but seeing her, suddenly so small sitting in that chair, his heart ached in a way it never had before. 

The drive back to the apartment was nearly silent, the only sound being the radio playing quietly in the background. Kora was driving, while Daniel sat in the back with Daisy, who he was pretty sure had drifted off. 

Opening the door to the apartment, they found it completely dust free, and the windows cracked open, airing out the stale air from its many empty months. On the counter was a bag with their favorite takeout, and a note sitting beside it. 

_ I figured you wouldn’t get the chance to clean up the apartment or make dinner tonight, so I got you covered. The beds have fresh sheets and bought some basic groceries. I’ll stop by medical tomorrow to check in. _

_ Love, May  _

Daisy huffed in a small laugh. “The Calvary’s gone soft in her old age.” 

She grabbed the bag and headed straight for the couch, falling into its deep cushions and immediately digging into a container of lo mein. Daniel and Kora both looked at her, shocked. They had been having to practically force her to eat almost every day for the past month, and she just shoveled a mouthful of noodles into her mouth like it was nothing. 

“What?” She asked, noticing them staring at her. “I’m tired and my whole body hurts but I’m starving. Besides, Jemma told me to eat. Doctor’s orders.” 

Kora shrugged, grateful for this one victory, and joined her sister on the couch, picking up another container and starting her dinner. Daniel followed, and soon they had piles of empty takeout containers and all three of them were absolutely stuffed. 

“You should be getting to bed,” Daniel instructed Daisy, who shook her head. 

“If I go you’re coming too.”

They both looked at Kora, who shrugged. “I’m not quite tired enough to sleep yet. I’ll probably do some unpacking before sleeping. Don’t mind me though, you guys are the one with the long day ahead of you.” 

“Alright then, I guess we’ll see you in the morning.” 

Daisy hugged her sister, before reaching her arms upward, waiting for Daniel to help her up from the couch. Instead of grabbing her hands and pulling like she expected, he scooped her up bridal style and carried her to their room, her giggling the whole way. 

Kora smiled as she watched them go, cherishing the sound of her sister’s laughter. A whole new stage in their long and uncertain journey was beginning tomorrow, but as long as Daisy kept up the strong personality and never let herself give up, she was sure that they would reach yet another new, better stage together once they were through this one. 


	8. Dad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ummm yes this is just lots of cuddling and major angst so woops. 
> 
> Also major philindaisy vibes 🤭

As soon as all was said and done with the meeting about treatment plans with Fitzsimmons, Daisy had been set up in a private room fitted with a whole array of medical equipment, an IV in her arm with her first round of chemotherapy being pumped into her veins. 

From what she understood of her friends’ science babble, she would be receiving one combo of different chemo drugs every day for four days, a new combo of drugs everyday for three days, and then a week off of treatments, then repeating the rotation all over again for six months. After that, they would reassess and see what about the treatment was working and what needed adjusting. 

Six months. 

At least. 

It was day one and the drugs running through her veins were making her stomach roll and her head pound worse than it had in weeks. 

The only relief came from Daniel’s hand steadily squeezing hers from his seat beside her bed, and the warmth of little Alya snuggled into her side. She had made sure to finish all her schoolwork early that day so she would be allowed to sit with her Aunt Daisy while she got her medicine. Jemma and Fitz obviously hadn’t explained the full gravity of the situation to her, but she was a smart kid, and she heard the word  _ cancer _ thrown around and knew that her Aunt would need some extra comforting. 

Daisy wasn’t sure how long she had been laying there with her eyes closed, her IV-bound arm outstretched on the bed, and the other partially around her niece and partially reached out for the contact from her boyfriend. She suddenly opened her eyes at the feeling of a hard gaze coming from the now open doorway. 

May was standing there, clearly angry about something, but what Daisy couldn’t figure out. 

“Hey, Alya, sweetheart,” she said, slowly unwinding her arm from around the small girl. “Why don’t you and Uncle Danny go get a snack and see if Tía Elena is back from her mission yet, okay?” 

Daniel looked at her for confirmation, receiving a nod. 

“Okay!” The little girl carefully sat up from Daisy’s side and gave her a peck on the cheek, before allowing Daniel to pick her up and lift her to sit atop his shoulders as they left the room, giving Daisy and May space to talk in private. 

“What’s wrong, May?” Daisy asked when her former S.O. didn’t begin speaking right away. 

“Why haven’t you told Coulson yet?” 

Daisy was taken aback for a moment. That was not at all what she was expecting. “How do you know I—” 

“Because if you had, he would be here by now,” May said sharply. 

“It’s just that he’s off, finally getting his chance to see the world and experience all the things S.H.I.E.L.D. life kept from him, I don’t want him feeling like he has to come back just for—”

“No,” May cut her off again. “You don’t get to make up excuses. That’s not why and we both know it.” 

“May, you don’t understand. We had a conversation, in the time loops, about dying and watching those we love die around us.” 

May’s face suddenly softened, realizing where this was going. She made her way across the room, sitting in the chair Daniel had been occupying just a few minutes earlier and waited for Daisy to continue. 

“He’s an LMD now, he doesn’t age or get hurt or get sick like the rest of us. And he won’t die like the rest of us. And a year and a half ago he was dreading watching the rest of us grow old and die without him, and now it’s happening sooner than we ever thought. I’m dying without even getting old first.” 

“First of all, you are sick, not dying,” May said, ignoring the eyebrow raise Daisy shot her. “You’re going to beat this and he’s not going to have to watch you die just yet. And even so, he deserves to know and he deserves to hear it directly from you. Not from me, not from Simmons, certainly not by showing up at HQ for a visit and finding you like  _ this _ ,” she said, gesturing to Daisy’s thin frame lying in the bed, needles poking out of her skin. “And besides, you were so set on making sure Alya had enough memories of you earlier  _ just in case _ . If you’re going to make all of us have to consider this  _ just in case  _ too, then we all want that same chance to spend extra time with you.” Her words had a little bit of a bit to them, but Daisy could tell that they were frustration and fear, not anger. 

“I know,” Daisy admitted with a sigh. 

“I’ll sit here with you if you want. While you do it.” 

“You will?” 

“Of course, Dais. After all this time you still struggle to remember that you aren’t alone in this. In anything. We are a family, this is what families do for each other.” 

Daisy took a moment to wipe away the tears that had started to pool in her eyes.  _ Of course _ she knew that she had an amazing support system like the one she had, but sometimes the reminder hit her harder than others. By now she  _ knew _ what families did for each other. But she didn’t always, she didn’t learn that until much later in life, and sometimes it was hard to believe that she had gotten so lucky, finding the family that she had. 

“Do you know what time zone he’s in at the moment?” 

May thought for a moment. “I think he’s somewhere in Spain right now, so it’ll be late evening. He’ll be awake, don’t worry.”

“Okay. I think I need to do it to his face though, I couldn’t just call him. Not for this. Could you grab my laptop?” Daisy asked, gesturing to the bag sitting in the corner of the room. Daniel had grabbed some essentials that morning before they left: a change of clothes, an extra blanket, phone chargers, and it was Daisy, so of course her laptop was an essential item. 

After situating the device on her lap and unlocking it, she started the link for a video chat before she had time to chicken out. 

The loading circle disappeared as her Coulson face appeared on the screen, wearing a huge grin. 

“Daisy! I didn’t know you were planning on calling, I thought you’d still be out of range in that nebula until at least next—“ he stopped abruptly, suddenly noticing that she wasn’t in her bunk on Zephyr 3 as she should have been, that she was in a S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility, with May sitting next to the bed she was lying in, her face just in the corner of the screen. 

“What happened?” He asked, dread laced deep into the tone of his voice and his smile falling immediately. “Are you hurt? Did something happen out on the mission?” 

Daisy stared blankly at the screen, all possible responses completely blanked from her mind at the sight of her father figure. All she could think about was wanting to see Coulson again, wanting him to hold her like he has so many times before, guarding her from the world.

“Can you come home?” She blurted out, hating how small and child-like her voice sounded. “Please?” 

His face softened. “Of course, honey. But can you please tell me what’s going on?” 

Daisy made another swipe of the tears in her eyes with her IV free hand, before reaching out to May, silently asking her for her hand to ground her. 

“I’m sick,” was all she could make out. “Bad, and I— I need you here. Please.” 

“Okay, honey. Of course I’ll come home.” How very Coulson of him. No questions asked, no holds barred, knowing exactly what she needed and not making her have to explain it. If his little girl needed him, he didn’t need to know all the details of the situation, he would be there without hesitation. “You’re in D.C.?” 

She nodded. 

“Okay. I’ll book the next flight over. I should be able to be there by tomorrow night at the latest.” 

All Daisy could do was nod. 

“I’ll see you soon then, okay sweetie?” She could tell he was being extra careful with her by the tone in his voice and his use of  _ honey _ and  _ sweetie _ . He only called her that when he knew she was really upset or hurting. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered, just before the call was disconnected. 

With the conversation finally over, Daisy couldn’t stop herself from breaking down. May helped her scoot over in the bed and slid in beside her, cradling the girl against her chest, carefully moving IV lines and monitoring wires out of the way. 

After a few minutes, Daisy’s breathing evened out, but she stayed pressed against May’s chest. 

“I’m not sure if that was from my own feelings or from you projecting yours,” she said, managing a small laugh.    
  


“I won’t lie, that was hard for me to watch,” May said quietly. “But even so, I would never choose to let you do that on your own. Just because I feel everyone’s emotions around me, doesn’t mean I want to avoid you guys. Remember that. If anything, I want to be here more, because I can really truly know how you’re feeling.” 

“Okay,” Daisy said, nodding. “Thank you anyway. You  _ know _ how much it means to me that you’re here.” 

“I do.” May stroked her hair comfortingly. “Try to get some more sleep while you can. I think Jemma might be coming back around soon to poke you a little more.” 

“Ugh, pokey Dr. Simmons,” Daisy mumbled, but closed her eyes anyway and felt herself drifting off to the soothing repetitive motion of May’s hand running through her soft curls. 

Daisy spent the night in the hospital room, and according to jemma this would become a pretty regular thing while she was in her active treatment weeks. They set up a cot for Daniel in the corner of the room after he refused to go home and leave Daisy at H.Q. alone, but of course by the morning the two of them had ended up squeezed into Daisy’s bed together. 

The next day was mostly uneventful. Daniel got dragged away completing mission reports and paperwork for most of the day, so Jemma spent the day in Daisy’s room keeping her company, in between switching IV bags and poking her patient with needles. The built up exhaustion of the past few days seemed to hit all at once, and Daisy crashed at about mid afternoon, not even waking from her sleep when Jemma removed her last chemo bag of the day and closed off her peripheral IV line for the day. 

By the time she finally woke up again, it was to the feeling of a harsh nausea washing over her. 

“Fuck,” she muttered, reaching her arm out for whoever was sitting beside her to hand her a bucket to throw up in, assuming it was Daniel. The bucket was placed quickly in her lap and a gentle hand held her hair away from her face and rubbed her back as she coughed, hunched over. When she had finally gotten it all out she leaned back against her pillows, grimacing, and finally looked over to see who her companion was. 

“Coulson!” she was slightly taken aback, suddenly realizing it was her first time seeing him in months and all she had done in his presence was sleep and vomit. “Oh, god, I’m sorry you had to see that. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh please, I’ve seen much worse than a little bit of throw up,” he said, always trying to crack jokes. “Although I’m not sure, that was a lot more than a little bit.” 

Daisy smiled back at him. Despite everything, his presence alone was always enough to cheer her up. He handed her a glass of water, which she took gratefully, as they settled into a little space of silence. 

“So it’s cancer?” Coulson finally said, speaking up. 

“Yeah. Did Jemma tell you?”

“Nah, I snuck a peek at the meds in your IV bag. Cytarabine and daunorubicin, those are both forms of chemo drugs,” he said, unfazed by his unusual knowledge of medical terms.   
  


“Since when did you know that sort of thing? Even I don’t know what’s in those things, I just let Jemma poke and prod at me all she wants.” 

“I don’t know. I guess Fitzsimmons must have added a Google search engine when they designed my new brain.” 

Daisy shook her head in a half-assed laugh. She hated when he made robot jokes. 

“But enough joking,” he said, his grin suddenly dropping. “How have you been feeling?”

“Pretty garbage if I’m being honest.”

“I do remember you mentioned a few months ago that you thought you were coming down with something, but I guess it wasn’t just a space flu after all.”

Daisy’s face fell, remembering what their original testing was for. 

“The only people who know about this so far are Daniel, Kora, and Jemma, but when we first did the testing... when we found out...” she paused, suddenly getting flustered. “God, I don’t know why I felt like I had to tell you this. First I drag you home from your vacation, make you hold back my hair while I vomit, only to make you listen to—”

“Daisy.” 

She stopped mid sentence. 

“Right, sorry,” she muttered with a shake to her head. “Um, so, when I first started getting sick I was constantly exhausted, and nauseous, and I started every day hunched over a toilet, coughing up what little I had kept down from the day before. And it kept going, and so we asked Jemma to analyze a sample because— we thought I was pregnant.”

Coulson gave a small intake of breath at that, hardly noticeable if it weren’t for her ability to feel the vibrations of it coursing through the air. Just as May had the day before, he toed off his shoes and slid into the bed beside her, allowing her to curl into his side. 

“I was so relieved at first,” Daisy began again. “When Jemma called and told me that I wasn’t pregnant. I’m just— that’s not something I’m ready for. Me  _ or _ Daniel. But then Jemma started crying over the line, and she said that it was  _ this _ , and if I thought an unplanned pregnancy would have been a lot to handle, this is a million times worse. 

“That’s just what I’m afraid of. I’m making all these promises, to  _ everyone _ , that I’ll fight, and everyone keeps saying that I’ll make it through, that I’m strong. But what if I can’t? What if this is one battle I can’t win?” She let out an exhausted sob. “What if I can’t win and I burden everyone for months or years or however long this lasts, only to let them down?” 

“Never  _ ever _ feel like you are burdening me or anyone else.  _ Ever _ . We’re all rooting for you and we all believe in you, of course, but first and foremost we’re in this  _ with _ you. No matter what happens,” he whispered into her hairline. “You don’t need to worry about letting anyone down. We’re already so proud of you, and nothing could ever make us love you any less.  _ Nothing _ .” 

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I ever have been of anything.”

“Okay,” she accepted, sniffling as her tears subsided. 

“Get some rest, sweetie,” he said softly, to which she nodded. 

She nestled herself further into his side and drifted off to sleep, held safely in her father’s arms. 


	9. Beanie Buddies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay SO. 
> 
> First off I completely forgot to post yesterday and I am so sorry 😬😬 
> 
> Second, I’m stupid and timed my uploads incorrectly and so the Thanksgiving chapter that I initially planned for yesterday ended up being a chapter later than I anticipated, so it’ll be a few days after Thanksgiving and will be posted Sunday instead. 
> 
> And third, this chapter really really got away from me and ended up being ungodly long but there was no good place to split it so enjoy a 3500 words monster of Dousy, Mama May, and Aunt Daisy and Alya. <3

It was late by the time Daisy and Daniel got home to their apartment. 

With everyone finally on Earth again, the Fitzsimmons family in the States for the time being, Coulson deciding to take a break with his traveling and a miraculous lull in bizarre and S.H.I.E.L.D. worthy worldwide occurrences and disasters, they were making sure to spend as much time as they could together as a family. 

It had been six weeks since Daisy started treatments, and she had just finished her third week of active chemo, finally in another recovery week. Those seven days when she received steady treatments everyday made her constantly nauseous, dizzy, and horribly fatigued, so when the off weeks came around everyone was grateful. Everyone did their best to visit her in her room in the med lab and keep her company during chemo weeks, but the off weeks were when they really took advantage of her feeling better and tried to spend more time with her outside of the hospital wing. 

That night May, Coulson, the Fitzsimmons, Daisy and Daniel, Piper, Davis, Flint, and Kora had spent the evening at Mack and Elena’s place, having dinner, sharing stories, playing games, and just spending time together. It wasn’t the first time they had done this, and Daisy would never forget the look of relief on Fitz’s face the first night they all gathered in the same room, not only all  _ together _ but all  _ alive _ . She couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for him to have seen a 100% chance that they would never be together again and had to live with that knowledge for so long, and to test the theory and find that it was wrong must have been a massive weight off of his shoulders. 

Flint and Kora had decided to stay out and meet up at a local bar with some of their friends from the Academy, so Daisy and Daniel got home to an empty apartment. Daisy loved that her sister lived with them and she preferred to keep her close by if at all possible, but sometimes she really wished that she and Daniel could just have time to themselves, alone. 

Walking through the door, she gave Daniel a quick kiss, before turning and heading toward the bathroom. “I’m going to get a shower before bed.” 

Daniel smiled after her as she disappeared around the corner into the hallway. Of course he knew that this sickness was tearing her apart from the inside, it was hard to forget when just a few days before he was having to carry her to and from the bathroom because she was too weak to stand up from her bed. Of course he knew that so many things were changing all around them. But he was so glad that she wasn’t letting it change  _ her _ , and that she was still the strong, persistent warrior smiling through the pain, just as she had always been. 

He headed into their bedroom to put his pajamas on and settled into bed with a book, waiting for Daisy to finish up and come to bed. After a chapter or two he realized she had been in there for quite some time, and got up to check on her, hoping he wasn’t embarrassing himself by missing some hint from her that she was hoping he’d join her. 

“Daisy?” He asked, opening the door and peeking inside. “You okay in there?” 

The first thing he saw through the fogged glass shower door was her small form sitting, back to him, on the floor of the shower. 

“Daisy!” 

He rushed over to the shower, pulled open the door, and quickly turned off the stream of hot water, before kneeling down to her level. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” 

She just shook her head, her back still to him. 

“Talk to me Dais,” he said, gently trying to turn her to face him. That’s when he saw it. A fistful of her long, bronze tinted hair was clutched in her shaking hands, and she was just staring at it, tears forming in her eyes. 

He grabbed a fluffy white towel from the bathroom closet and wrapped it around her, carefully lifting her from the shower floor. She shuffled her feet along the floor beneath her feet as he carried most of her weight and sat her down gently on their bed. He got out one of his T-shirts and her favorite pair of sweatpants and dressed her as she continued to stare blankly at the clump of hair held in her grip. 

“Daisy,” he said softly, kneeling down in front of her. 

She finally looked away from the hair, but refused to look Daniel in the eyes. 

“It’s so stupid. This is so stupid,” she muttered, more to herself that anyone. 

“Whatever it is that your feeling right now, it’s not stupid, Daisy,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand to bring her eyes up to his. “Talk to me, what’s going through your head?” 

“Danny, I—“ she tried, but her voice broke and she didn’t bother to continue speaking. 

Daniel frowned even further than he had been. She only ever called him “Danny” if she was teasing or when she was feeling especially vulnerable, and in this moment it was most certainly not the former. 

“Dais, I’m sorry, I really am. I know that there is nothing I can say that—“

“No, I knew this was coming,” she cut him off shakily. “I knew my hair was going to fall out and I thought I had gotten myself prepared for when it finally would, but now that it’s actually happening… It’s such a stupid thing, but my hair has always been the  _ one thing _ I had control over, even when the rest of the world around me was going to shit. It became a bit of a joke among the team, like ‘oh no, we solved the latest world catastrophe, what’s Daisy going to do to her hair to cope now?’ So it’s just… weird.” 

“It’ll take some getting used to. I know it doesn’t really count because you didn’t  _ choose _ this hair style, but maybe try just thinking of this as your new “post catastrophe” look.” 

She chuckled lightly at that, before her smile faded again. 

“Definitely won’t be as fun as the bangs or the purple hair,” she muttered, still trying to keep things light. 

He gently grabbed her hand and pried the clump of hair out of her grip, placing it on the bedside table nearest to him. He moved from his place on the floor to the bed and laid the two of them down, and with her face burrowed in his chest, she finally let the dam break, the disbelief, shock, resignation, and exhaustion of the past few weeks crashing down on her. Daniel had silent tears running down his face as she shook in his arms, and he made a decision to cancel their plans for the next few days. While it was nice to be able to use her week off of treatment to do the things that she never felt up to doing while on the drugs, he realized that they had been going far too hard for too long and what both of them, especially Daisy, needed was time to just  _ be _ . No chemo, no rushing around to plans, none of the S.H.I.E.L.D. hacking work she’d taken up while benched from the field. 

And as he felt her shuddering breaths slow against him and her body go slack in his hold, he finally allowed himself to fall asleep. 

Between the two of them the next morning, they agreed that they would make their apartment their own little world, staying cooped up for the rest of the week until Daisy had to go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. for her next cycle of chemo. She came to the same conclusion he had the night before, that they had been trying to do  _ more _ in the extra time between treatments when really they should be doing  _ less _ and using that as the recovery period it was meant to be. 

The decision was definitely helped by the fact that more of Daisy’s hair had come out onto her pillow while she slept, bringing a whole bout of tears and frustration when she awoke. She eventually closed herself off, sitting in silence and staring into space, not wanting to be touched or spoken to. She insisted that she needed some time alone, and although reluctant to let her out of his sight when she got like this, Daniel respected her wish and went out into their kitchen to make breakfast. 

He checked his phone to see a text from Kora from the night before, letting him know that she was spending the night with one of her Academy friends and would be out most of the day as well. He could tell that while Kora loved spending time with her sister, she was enjoying the chance to get out and see some of the friends she had made during her basic training. As she tried to convince everyone that since she was born  _ before _ Daisy that meant she was older, she really was still in her early twenties, and it was good for her to be able to spend time with people closer to her age. 

It was probably good for today as well, because if Daisy needed space, the fewer people in the house, the better. He made his way back to the bedroom to check on her, only to find her exactly the way he left her, sitting in the bed staring straight ahead, lost and drowning in her own little world. 

_ Well _ , he thought to himself.  _ Maybe one other person should be here.  _

He looked at the time. 8:57am. Damn. May would be about to start a lecture. He dialed her number anyway, and she picked up on the second ring. 

“Sousa, I’m currently standing in front of 300 students about to start a lecture, and I literally just saw you last night so you better have a good reason for calling.” 

“It’s Daisy.” 

May’s heart went cold. 

“What happened, is she okay?” 

“I think so. It’s nothing we need to take her to the hospital for,” he clarified, realizing the panic he must have caused. “Sorry, I should have started with that.” 

An audible sigh of relief came across the line. “You  _ think _ she’s okay?” 

“She’s having one of her  _ days _ ,” he said, knowing May would understand. 

For as long as Daniel had known her, Daisy would have moments where she would shut herself down, get lost in her own head, and spend most of the day unresponsive and unable to pull herself out of bed. Sometimes it would be a day, sometimes only a few hours, and sometimes it could go on for days. According to the team, her “episodes” began after her mind was taken over by Hive, a story that had taken a long time for Daisy to work her way up to telling, and one that he could tell she still felt guilty for, even more than five years later. 

“Don’t cancel your lecture or anything,” he said quickly, sensing that she was about to announce to her class that they would be dismissed for the say. “She’s stable right now, she’s in bed. I’m going to try to get her to eat some breakfast, but I think it’d be helpful for you to maybe come by later if you’re able to.” 

“Of course I’ll come. My class will be over in two hours, and I’ll be over after that. Anything you need me to pick up on my way over?”

“No, I think we’re good. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know. I’ll see you soon.”

May hung up the phone, realising it was now 9:04, and her class should have already started. 

“I’m sorry about that, it was a family matter, otherwise I would have put it on hold until after class,” she told the room full of students. 

One of the younger recruits raised his hand. 

“Yes, Garcia?”

“Was it something to do with Quake?” he asked boldly. 

May tensed up. 

“First of all her name is Daisy, or in your case  _ Agent Johnson _ , as she is an agent outranking everyone here,” she snapped. “And secondly, that’s none of your concern.” 

“Professor May,” another student spoke up, more timidly than the last one. “We can tell that something is wrong. You’re projecting your worry all over us and it’s actually quite uncomfortable. Maybe it would be better for everyone if you just called it for today and went to help Agent Johnson.” 

“If you guys wouldn’t mind?” May asked the class gratefully. 

The whole room nodded fervently, and she looked around to notice a lot of them had started bouncing their legs, biting at their fingernails, and shifting anxiously in their seats. 

Damn. She must have really been projecting. She made a point to pull her emotions back in check and saw the whole room of students breathe a sigh of relief. 

“Alright. Thank you everyone, and I’m sorry about the projection. I really didn’t notice I had been doing it until you mentioned it. We’ll be back to the next class as regularly scheduled, and yes, that means you get an extension on the project we were supposed to go over today. You’re welcome.” 

Once the last student had left the lecture hall, she quickly packed up her things and began the short drive to Daisy and Daniel’s apartment, doing her best not to break any traffic laws on the way. 

Letting herself in with her key, she was met with the refreshing smell of fresh bacon and pancakes, and the sound of Daniel’s deep voice mumbling something softly from their bedroom down the hall. 

“I’ll be back, okay?” she heard him say, before he made his way into the kitchen to meet her. 

“I thought I said not to cancel your lecture?” 

“Well, apparently I was unintentionally projecting enough worry on my students to make them all too twitchy to focus, so they gave me permission to let them go. Now that I think of it, they definitely could have been faking it to a day off of class,” she said with a shrug. 

“No, if what you’re projecting right now is anything like what they were feeling, I’d say it was probably good of you not to hold them.” 

“How is she?” May asked, diverting the conversation away from talk of her own abilities. 

“I haven’t gotten her to eat yet, but she let me rub her back without flinching.” 

“Well that’s good to hear, maybe this one will only last a few hours then,” May said, starting to make her way toward the bedroom, but Daniel grabbed her arm to stop her. 

“There’s something else you should know before you go in there,” he warned her. “Last night her hair started falling out in the shower, and then it was all over her pillow in clumps when we woke up this morning. And she’s been taking it really hard. I think that might have been part of what triggered this particular episode.” 

May nodded in understanding, then continued her path down the hallway. 

“Hey, Dias,” she said as she pushed the door open, announcing her presence so as to not startle the inhuman. 

Daisy was lying on her side, but by this point had pulled herself out of her own mind enough to turn her head toward her visitor. 

“Can I sit down with you?” May asked cautiously. She knew by now that when Daisy had moments like this it was best to ask for permission to do anything, or tell her exactly what you are about to do to be sure that she wouldn’t be startled by anything. 

Daisy nodded, so May toed off her shoes and climbed into the bed, sitting so that her back was against the headboard and Daisy’s back was still turned to her. She noticed with a clench in her heart a pile of Daisy’s long bronze hair laying on the bedside table, presumably where Daniel had set it when cleaning it from off of the pillow. 

“I’m going to touch your shoulder, okay?” 

Daisy leaned into her touch, slowly rolling over so she could rest her head in May’s lap. 

“Can I put my hand on your head?” She asked, unsure if that would be a no go zone for today. 

Sure enough Daisy paused, thinking for a few seconds, before shaking her head no. 

They just sat there for a while, the sound of Daniel cleaning up the dishes he dirtied making breakfast coming from the kitchen down the hall. 

“I know that losing your hair is really really hard for you and you don’t want to rush it,” May eventually started speaking. “But I also feel like having it come out little by little in clumps might actually be harder. I have an idea and you might not like it, but I think it’s probably for the best right now. Do you trust me?” 

Daisy turned so she was looking up at her former S.O. “Of course,” she said, speaking for the first time all day. 

Twenty minutes later May, Daisy, and Daniel were set up in the bathroom with an electric razor. Daniel held Daisy’s hand as May carefully shaved the remaining hair, letting it fall in little piles onto the floor. 

Daisy let out a sigh that was part relief, part disappointment, and part resignation as the last bit of hair fell to the ground, leaving her head bare. 

“I guess that’s it,” she said, trying to laugh through it. “I guess I really do look like a cancer patient now.” 

“A beautiful cancer patient,” Daniel said, softly kissing her blushing cheek. 

They stuck with their plan of hanging around the apartment for the remainder of the week, and other than Kora, who of course lived there too, the team gave them some space for Daisy to adjust to her new haircut, or lack thereof, and really rest before her next cycle of chemo. By Monday she had come to terms with it and was glad to see her family again, even if it was them keeping her company in her hospital room while she received her chemo infusions. 

Eventually it was just her and Daniel in the room, once everyone had gone off to actually do their jobs, and they were sitting in a comfortable silence. Daisy laid there with her eyes closed letting her mind wander, trying to distract herself from her pulsing headache and aching muscles. 

“Aunt Daisy!” 

The older woman was caught off guard, suddenly pulled out of her brain by the excited shrieks of her niece. Fitzsimmons were nowhere to be seen, but Alya had the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. science division wrapped around her little finger, and she pretty much had free reign around the labs. 

“What’s up crazy kid? Whatcha got there?” she asked as Alya navigated around the wires and tubes, careful not to bump any, to climb up and sit in the bed with her, carrying a small package wrapped in shimmery silver wrapping paper. 

“Well,” Alya started excitedly. “You missed our picnic last week and Mama said it was because you were feeling sad that your hair was all gone, so I got you a present to help cheer you up!” 

“Oh, did you now?” 

“Yes! I did!” The little girl was so excited that she could barely keep herself from bouncing up and down on the bed, the only thing stopping her was her knowledge that she had to be careful not to bump her IV lines. “Can you open it now?” 

“Of course!” 

Daisy pulled the wrapping paper off to find a deep purple beanie with the words “QUAKE IS MY HERO” embroidered into it. Daniel burst out into laughter beside her. 

“And!” Alya exclaimed. “I have one too!” She pulled an identical hat out from the pocket of her sweatshirt and put it on. “We can match! Mama says this type of hat is called a beanie. So we can be beanie buddies! And it can keep your head warm until you get better and your hair grows back!” 

Daisy’s smile grew to match her niece’s as she pulled the hat on over her head. 

“It’s perfect, Monkey. Thank you!” She opened her IV free arm out for a hug, and Alya settled into her side, beaming. 

Daniel pulled his phone out and took a picture of the two of them, huddled together and laughing in their matching hats. 

Alya suddenly grew serious. “You really  _ are _ my hero.” 

“Even when I can’t be Quake?” Daisy asked, looking down at the little girl. “Even when I’m just Aunt Daisy?” 

Alya’s eyes grew wide as she stared directly into Daisy’s. 

“ _ Especially _ when you’re just Aunt Daisy.” 


	10. Thanksgiving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me saying I’d post in Sunday and then posting at 2:30 am on monday and pretending it still counts as Sunday 🤭 
> 
> Also the ending might be rough I was literally falling asleep as I wrote it

The six months of Daisy’s first round of treatment simultaneously drug on and flew by. She still had a constant cycle of her seven days of nausea, exhaustion, and general sickness while she was actually receiving the chemo drugs, as well as a few days of her recovery week to start feeling better again. After the overwhelming incident that occurred when her hair had first started falling out, they began making sure that she continued to really use her recovery week to rest and build back her strength for the next week. 

At the end of her first round of chemo Fitzsimmons did another day full of testing, just as they had when she first arrived back on Earth, and then next day they brought Daniel and Daisy back to the lab to go over the next steps in the plan. 

“Well the good news is the treatment has begun to work,” Fitz started. 

“By your specification of  _ good _ I presume there is also bad,” Daisy said, already preparing herself for whatever was coming. 

“Well, considering your body responded well to the first round of chemotherapy, we know that it  _ is _ working, just not as fast as we would like it,” Jemma began to explain. 

“And the plan to fix that would include…?” 

“That’s part of the ‘bad news’ I suppose,” she continued. ”I want to add a third drug to your regimen, as well as up your dosages of what you’re already on. But this third drug, doxorubicin, it has a reputation among cancer patients for being particularly brutal. It’s nicknamed the Red Devil. It’ll be massively shitty.” 

Daniel sighed and looked down toward his and Daisy’s joined hands. He was glad to hear that the treatment was having some effect, but the thought of adding treatments that would make her even more sick than she already was was hard to take. He may not understand any of the treatments or drugs or procedures she was getting, but he trusted Fitz and Simmons, and he just hoped that whatever they prescribed would do the job right. He hated seeing the woman he loves looking so vulnerable and in pain, but if that is what it took for her to get better, he knew he would stand by her side through the whole process, no matter how difficult.. 

“Okay, well, if it’s what you think is best, then I trust you. 100%,” Daisy said confidently. 

“That’s another thing that we wanted to talk to you about,” Fitz said solemnly. 

Daisy froze at the time in her friend’s voice. “Why do I automatically feel like this is going to be bad news as well?” 

“With your permission, of course, we’re going to be handing your case over to a local hospital,” Jemma explained. “We always knew this was going to be a temporary move, and we need to go home.” 

Daisy’s heart sank. She had gotten so used to having her best friends around that she had forgotten that they had a life of their own now. They had dropped everything and left it all behind the past six months to make sure that she would have the best chance of a successful treatment, but they couldn't stick around forever. They had to go home eventually. 

“I’ll still be consulting on your case, of course, and I’ll keep in constant contact with your new treatment team at the hospital, considering I know more about Inhuman biology than anyone,” Jemma assured her. ” _ But _ your first round showed that even with your alien DNA, your body reacts the same to chemo as a normal human, so at this point I would feel comfortable enough to allow someone else to take care of you.” 

“I understand,” Daisy said, trying not to show her disappointment. She didn’t want her friends feeling guilty for needing to go back to their normal lives. They had already things on hold for her for long enough. “When will you be leaving?” 

“We’ll stick around until just after Thanksgiving. The Monday after the holiday you’ll meet with the head of the oncology/hematology unit at the regular hospital, and then you’ll start your next round of treatments the next day. We’ll stay for about a week after, just to be sure that you’ll be okay with the new treatment team. But after that we’ll have to go back to Scotland.” 

“I understand,” Daisy nodded. 

“We really  _ are _ sorry, Daisy,” Fitz said sincerely. “We’d absolutely stay here with you if we could.” 

“I know. You have things you need to get back to. You’ve put your life on hold long enough for me, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done.” 

“You’re out family. There’s nothing less we could have possibly done.” 

The following week everyone gathered once again at Mack and Elena’s place to celebrate Thanksgiving. 

Chairs were crowded around the table, which was full of food, and the noise of so many different conversations happening at once was deafening. 

Eventually everyone had calmed down, Mack and Elena standing up to get everyone’s attention. 

“Since this will be the last time we’re all together before Christmas, Elena and I have a bit of an announcement to make,” Mack said, wrapping an arm around his wife. 

“Last night we signed the paperwork to officially adopt Flint as our son,” Elena beamed, and the room erupted into hugs, congratulations, and huge smiles. 

“And!” Flint spoke up, quieting everyone to look over at him. “Just in time for me to officially be able to call myself a big brother,” Flint said with a grin. 

Somehow the level of noise doubled as everyone began to laugh and give congratulations at once. 

Daisy let out a shriek of excitement and jumped out of her chair, flying across the room and throwing herself into Mack’s arms, and then into Elena’s. 

“Oh my god! I can’t believe it, I’m so thrilled for you guys,” she gasped, out of breath. “And shit, I shouldn’t have jumped up that fast.” 

She grabbed onto Mack’s arm to steady herself as the room swayed and went fuzzy for a moment. A rush of wind rippled around her and she suddenly found herself sitting in her chair again, Elena having run her back to keep her from falling. 

“Thanks,” Daisy said with a small laugh. Five months ago something like that would have embarrassed the hell out of her, but by now she’d generally learned to accept the help of others when they offered it. 

The conversation turned excitedly back to the growing Rodriguez-Mackenzie family, and as the initial shock and thrill of it began to wear off, Daisy found herself having to put effort into keeping the smile on her face. She was happy for her friends, truly, she was. But damn. A baby. That was still a sore subject in the back of her mind. 

As a few minutes went by, she had to try harder and harder not to show her disappointment. It didn’t help that May kept shooting concerned looks in her direction. It made sense that she would know something was off, her sadness probably stuck out like a sore thumb against the elation of the rest of the room. 

Daisy reached out to grab Daniel’s hand and whispered into his ear, requesting that he help her to one of the spare bedrooms. He stood up without question, wrapping an arm around her waist and holding most of her weight as they quietly stepped away from the table and made their way to a more private room. He helped her sit on the edge of the bed, and then crouched on the floor in front of her, bringing her just above his eye level. 

“Is this about the testing we did right before your initial diagnosis?” He asked, holding her hands in his. 

“Yes and no,” she started to explain, trying to keep her emotions from spilling over and cutting off her words. “For so long having kids seemed like such a massive impossibility for so many of us. It wasn’t safe or responsible or  _ right _ to risk bringing a child into our insane lives. But now things have calmed down, we aren’t on the edge of our seats waiting for the next world ending catastrophe to start, Fitzsimmons have Alya, now Mack and Yoyo are having a baby, and I’m here with you and it’s something I could have seen as a possibility for us.”

“It still can be, Daisy,” Daniel tried to reassure her, wiping the teasers that had gathered along her lower eyelids. 

“No,” she mumbled, so quiet he almost didn’t hear her. 

“It can, Daisy. When this is all over, and after some time making sure you are 100% again, we can try for it if it’s something you still want for us.” 

“No,” she repeated, a little more firmly this time. “It can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

Daisy sighed. “Since Fitzsimmons told me they’d no longer be lead doctors on my treatment team, I started reading more information about the chemo process, side effects, the specific drug concoctions I’m on, and the like of that. I figured that if I were going to be more in charge of making my medical decisions rather than trusting Jemma to do it for me, I should know what we’re dealing with.” 

“Okay,” he nodded that he was following. Up until this point Daisy had been sitting on the edge of the bed and Daniel had been on the floor crouching in front of her, but he could tell by the tone her voice started to take that he was going to want be as near as possible to her, holding her in his arms and doing his best to block out the pain of the world around them, the pain in their own life. Once they were settled together in the bed, Daisy’s back pressed against Daniel’s chest with his large arms wrapped around her, she continued talking. 

“You remember when I told you that the chemo kills the cancer cells, but it also goes through and kills or shuts down just about every other system in the body?”

“Yeah.”

“It often shuts down the reproductive system as well, considering its one of the least crucial functions for the body to operate on its own. It’s why I haven't gotten my period in ages. But some chemo drugs are known for shutting it down permanently and causing infertility.”

A sudden look of realization crossed Daniel’s face, already anticipating the news she was about to break. 

“Cytarabine and daunorubicin are two of them,” Daisy said. “And those are the drugs I’ve been receiving for the past six months.” 

“So you’re not just upset because you’re thinking about how that could have been us,” he said. “You’re upset because that can  _ never _ be us.”

She nodded, and Daniel just held her tighter against his chest. 

“Okay,” he said after a while. 

Daisy shifted in his grip until she was turned around and could look him in the face. 

“Just  _ okay _ ?” she asked him. “That’s it? You’re not disappointed?” 

He just sat there, taking a few minutes to collect his thoughts. “The woman I love just told me that she wants to build a family with me, but that we can’t. Of course I’m disappointed. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Daisy just sighed, knowing he was right. 

“And way down the line, if it’s something we are ready for, there are other options.”

Their eyes met, Daisy immediately knowing what he was talking about. 

“You mean it?” 

“Of course I do,” he said, planting a kiss to her temple. “I know you had a rough time going through the system as a kid. If we have the opportunity, we could give some of those kids the chance at a life you were never given.” 

The tears finally began to spill over her eyes at that, and Daniel just hugged her closer and closer. 

“I love you,” he said softly. “I love you and I will always love you, whether or not we can have a little us running around or not, whether we make room in our hearts to give some kids the home they deserve, or if it’s just you and me together forever. I will always, always love you.”

By the time they had finished talking and had wiped the tears from each other's eyes, they finally went back downstairs to be with the group. Jemma and Elena were talking on the couch, presumably about their pregnancy experiences, so Daisy stayed out of earshot of their conversation. She sent a reassuring nod toward May, who gave her a pointed look as if to let her know that she knew that something was going on. Coulson was playing legos with Alya on the floor, while Mack and Fitz were tinkering with a mechanical toy car, and Kora and Flint had gone outside to spar. Daniel sat on one of the other couches, making room for Daisy to curl into his side as they watched those around them in silence.. 

No matter what their immediate family situation would turn out to be in the end, they both knew that these people, no matter what, would always be enough family for them. 


	11. Most Wanted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’M POSTING A DAY LATE AGAIN I’M SO SORRYYYYYYY 
> 
> Also if a lot of these chapters are feeling like filler I’m sorry next chapter will have a little more progression to it.

Daisy’s new doctor, Dave Warren, was good enough at his job. 

Actually, he was one of the best oncologists in the city, Jemma had made sure of that before she left. The real problem was that he was no Dr. Simmons, The hospital wasn’t her favorite place to be, either. Her room wasn’t the warm, comfortable one she had been given at H.Q., but a typical cold, white room with the uncomfortable gurney as a bed and the blinding white LED lights overhead. Per hospital protocol, she had to live as an inpatient resident at the hospital until they decided she was adjusted enough to her new chemo regimen. 

At this point, just the one added drug had tripled her nausea and made every cell in her body achy and fatigued. She had chosen to have a port inserted into her chest for the medications to be administered through, as she had been told that the new drug, doxorubicin, would be especially harsh if injected through the catheter in her arm that they had previously been using. Her foul mood from being stuck in the hospital certainly wasn’t helping her health either. The hard toll her second round was taking on her body was enough for Dr. Warren to keep her confined to the oncology unit for the seventh week straight. She had gone right through Christmas, right through New Year’s, and was now well into January and hadn’t so much as left her floor. 

It wasn’t the first time someone from the team had spent the holidays stuck in medical, but even when missions went wrong, they were still on base and could bring the holiday celebrations to the led bay so no one would have to miss out. But spending Christmas in a hospital, they had to adhere to their strict rules about the number of people in a room at one time and visiting hours, so Kora and Daniel had been the only ones with Daisy this year. The rest of the team hung around on a video chat for a while, but it still put a damper on the holiday season. 

All her family tried to stop by to visit as often as they could, but Fitzsimmons could only do video chats twice a week, and S.H.I.E.L.D. life kept the rest of them busy. Even Daniel, who had weaseled his way out of adhering to visitor hour rules and spent nearly every night either squeezed into her hospital bed or crammed onto a cot they provided on the corner of her room, had to be away working almost every day. Mack tried to give him as little work to do as possible so Daisy wouldn’t spend every day alone, but with the agency still on the long road of rebuilding itself to its former glory, there never seemed to be enough hands to carry the workload. 

Coulson had been her most common visitor. After coming home from his travels, he took a temporary part time job teaching S.H.I.E.L.D. history at Coulson Academy. He found it unnerving, teaching at a school named after himself, and liked to comment on it at every opportunity he could find. Everyone knew, though, that his main point in taking up the job was that he had an excuse to stick around D.C., and therefore stay closer to Daisy. But it was finals week at the academy, so even Coulson was swamped with lectures and grading papers this week and so she had seen no one all week but her nurses and Daniel, when he was off duty at night. 

By Thursday afternoon, she not only felt horribly ill from the chemo infusion she had received that morning, but felt so isolated and emotionally drained. She wanted nothing more than a hot bath, to sleep in her own bed, or even to do some S.H.I.E.L.D. work., but nothing they were currently working needed any of her hacking skills and any quaking was completely out of the question. 

Daisy’s eyes were closed, hoping sleep would overtake her just to cure her boredom, when she heard a tentative knock on her door. She was confused for a moment; her nurses never knocked and she wasn’t expecting Daniel for at least four more hours. 

“What the hell are you knocking for? If she’s sleeping we don’t want to wake her,” she heard a familiar voice hiss to whoever was with them. 

“Holy shit,” Daisy gasped, her eyes flying open. She would recognize that British drawl anywhere. 

Standing awkwardly in the doorway of her room were Bobbi and Hunter, and she stared at them in complete disbelief. 

“Tell me this isn’t some fever dream,” Daisy muttered, not willing to trust her own eyes, afraid she would blink back to reality and be staring at an empty doorway. 

“Hey there, сестра,” Bobbi smiled, tears visible in her eyes. It had been nearly six years since the last time they had seen each other, and up until the moment she opened her eyes to see them standing in front of her, Daisy thought that their final mission in Russia would be the last time she ever saw either of them. 

“Nice hat,” Hunter teased. She was wearing her Quake Is My Hero beanie from Alya. Despite initially being slightly embarrassed to wear a hat with her own moniker from the press, but after seeing Alya’s proud smile everytime she would visit wearing her own matching hat, Daisy decided it wasn’t so bad. Ironic, a little humorous even. “We heard all about Quake on the news. I like the name, maybe a little much, but—” 

“Oh my god,” she said, cutting him off. “You’re here. You’re actually here.” 

Grins broke out on both of her friends’ faces, and they both swiped away tears that had pooled in the corners of their eyes. 

“Come in, oh my god!” Daisy gestured them into the room, frantically looking around the area trying to offer some form of hospitality in her little enclosure. “There’s only one chair, sorry about that. I could call a nurse to get you another chair, but the one on call right now is a little grumpy and I don’t really want to deal with her right now. You could pull Daniel’s cot closer to the bed to sit on, if you don’t think that’s too weird. He won’t mind, he spends most nights squeezed in this bed with me anyway—”

“Daniel?” Hunter asked with a raised eyebrow. “We really must have missed a lot.” 

“You did. But more on him later. How are you even here right now? I thought we weren’t even allowed to pretend we knew of your existence anymore.” 

“Well, turns out Director Mack has become very proficient at sweet talking politicians and diplomatic leaders, and convinced them to essentially un-disavow us,” Bobbi said with a huge smile on her face. 

“So you guys are agents again?” Daisy exclaimed, practically bouncing up and down on the thin mattress. 

“Yep! Mack is working on getting us our first assignment.”

“Throwing us right back into the thick of it too,” Hunter said, with mock annoyance. “Seven month minimum undercover assignment as a married couple, if you can believe that. We’re heading out two weeks from now.” 

“Oh, shut it,” Bobbi nipped back. “You’re excited.” 

“I’m bloody thrilled,” he admitted with a smile to match his ex wife’s. 

“Never ending with the bickering,” Daisy laughed. “Did you two ever tie the knot again for real?” 

“No, but the only thing keeping it from being official is a piece of paper,” Bobbi said. “That, and we didn’t want to do it if our family wasn’t allowed to be there with us.” 

Daisy gave them a bittersweet smile, thinking about how much they were going to have to make up for lost time once they returned from their mission. 

“But anyway, enough about us!” Hunter said, waving his hand. “Tell us about what’s gone on since we left!” 

“How much have the others told you?”

“We know most of the major stuff,” Bobbi told her, her eyes turning sad for a moment. Hive. Lincoln. Watchdogs and going rogue. Of course Mack would have warned them to stay clear of those topics when asking her to fill them in. She was grateful for that. She had moved past all that by now, but the thought still stung. 

“We’ve met with most of the old team by now and learned their stories. Mack and that speedy chick from Columbia? Apparently that became a thing. And we heard all about Coulson becoming a robot, traveling through time, and Fitzsimmons having a genius mini them. So now it’s time for your side of things.” 

“Right,” she sighed. “God, where to start? A lot went down. Not all of it was pleasant.” 

“Why don’t you tell us about the time travel mission and meeting Daniel?” Bobbi asked. “We know enough of the basics about everything before that, you don’t need to go back to that place in your mind.” 

Daisy smiled gratefully, and began to recount their adventure through timelines and across dimensions and through space. 

Bobbi and Hunter listened intently as told them the tale, Bobbi’s eyes widening when Daisy revealed that Daniel was the Daniel Sousa, S.H.I.E.L.D. legend, saved from his fatal attack in 1955. 

“Well, we’re going to have to meet Daniel ourselves,” Hunter insisted. “We heard from the team that he’d passed the Mack, May, Coulson, FitzSimmons, and the Alya test, which that last one I didn’t even dare hope for the last time I saw Fitz. But he hasn’t been vetted by either of us yet and that’s going to have to change.” 

“Of course,” Daisy laughed. “He should be here in about… an hour and a half.” 

A slight silence followed, as they remembered where here was. In their long conversation of catching up, Daisy had been so distracted that she forgot about her cancer, and Bobbi and Hunter forgot that they were sitting on a cot in a stark white hospital room. 

“Did the team mention that I joined the ‘I Died and Came Back to Life Club’?” she asked, the joke getting lost in the seriousness of what the conversation had turned into. 

“They didn’t. So you died and came back and now have cancer? You’d think that dying would give you an automatic free pass for avoiding shitty life threatening circumstances.” 

“If only. I mean, more than half of us have died at this point, if we got free passes we might have been able to avoid quite a few shitty life threatening circumstances, as you put it,” Daisy said, trying to laugh. “I’m not sure it would count for anything though, considering the fight that killed me is what got me sick in the first place.”

She proceeded to tell them the ending to their time travel story, how Fitz said that the only way they had any chance of winning was for her to sacrifice herself and hope that her sister (and yes, they picked up her long lost sister in the 80s) could bring her back with her powers. And how she of course had agreed to do it in a heartbeat, but then a little over a year later they discovered that the radiation released all around her when she blew the Chronicom ship had landed her in her current predicament. 

“Bloody hell, mate,” Hunter sighed, shaking his head as Daisy finished her story. 

“Well, I know it might necessarily be any consolation, but we brought you something from the gift shop,” Bobbi said, reaching into the bag she had set on the floor beside the cot where they had been sitting and pulling out a small dog stuffed animal with a purple ribbon tied around its neck. “Since you’ve always been a sucker for a stuffed animal.” 

“And ‘cuz, you know, purple’s always been your color.” 

Daisy reached for the dog and hugged it against her chest. “Even after all this time, you know me so well.” 

“Well, you’ll always be my младшая сестра,” Bobbi said with a sad smile. It had always been, and seemed to still be, her thing to refer to her family in pet names in her many languages. Little sister had always been Daisy. 

The three of them continued to reminisce about old stories from S.H.I.E.L.D., for a while, until a nurse stopped by the room. Luckily, the rotation had changed and her on-call nurse was a much kinder and more understanding one than the one who was there when they first arrived. 

“I’m sorry Daisy, but visiting hours are just about up, and I have to give you your evening meds,” she told them, clearly genuinely apologetic. 

“Can they just stay until Daniel gets here?” Daisy begged. “He’ll be here soon but they’ve never met him and I’d really love for them to, and it might be their last chance for almost a year. You can hook up my port now if you really need to do it immediately, I’m sure they won’t mind.” 

Bobbi and Hunter both shook their heads at the nurse to indicate that they didn’t, and she sighed. 

“Fine. Once Daniel is here I’ll give you half an hour to introduce them, but after that they’ll have to be on their way,” the nurse agreed. “But I’ll hold off on your infusion and give it to you once they leave. I know Daniel doesn’t mind, but I’m sure they wouldn’t particularly enjoy seeing what you ate for lunch.” 

“Good point. Thank you so much.” 

“Your lunch?” Hunter questioned as the nurse turned away and left the room. 

“The chemo makes me vomit,” Daisy said simply. “Pretty quickly too. They hook up my port and three minutes later whatever food and liquids they’ve gotten in me throughout the day are right back on the outside.” 

“Well that’s brilliant isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, real nice.” 

“What mixture of chemo drugs did they put you on? If you don’t mind me asking?” Bobbi said. Of course the biologist in her wanted to hear about the science-y details. 

Daisy was just finishing explaining her regimen and treatment schedule when Daniel arrived. As her nurse promised, they had exactly half an hour to meet and talk before she came to kick Bobbi and Hunter out and start Daisy’s chemo. 

By the time they left Daniel had officially passed their ”good enough man for Daisy” test, and as Daisy expected, he and Bobbi had hit it off talking S.H.I.E.L.D. Ops and became fast friends. 

Even as she began to feel bile rise up the back of her throat as the medications started making their way through her body, she couldn’t help but smile. She had gotten two members of her family back today, and no amount of nausea could put a damper on that. 


	12. Remission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to go back to posting once a week instead of twice a week because between doing schoolwork, editing, and writing this, writing two chapters a week is a bit too much. 😬

Before they knew it, Daisy’s second round of chemo had wrapped up and they were spending another day running tests to view her progress. They did x-rays, MRIs, CT scans, bloodwork, and extracted bone marrow for examination. Out of all the days she got poked and prodded by needles, this was her least favorite. This one felt too much like Nathaniel picking her apart, and despite it being years later, she had come to accept that that day would always haunt her. 

But later that week when they sat down with Dr. Warren, he held her file in his hand and a grin on his face. 

At the word  _ remission _ Daisy bursts into tears of relief, and Daniel pulled her into the biggest hug, picking up her thin figure so enthusiastically her feet lifted off the ground. 

She would have to come back once a month for a while to be sure that the cancer cells wouldn’t start growing again, and she would continue chemo for a short time in what was called  _ consolidation therapy _ , which would kill off whatever few cancer cells the tests hadn’t been able to pick up on, Dr. Warren told them. It was a week of very high dosage, intense chemo once every four weeks, and would unfortunatley involve a week-long hospital stay with each dose, but it was like warming down after a workout, Dr. Warren said. You have to stretch so you don’t get too sore, and you have to do consolidation therapy to clear out any cells that were missed. 

As soon as they were out the doors of the hospital, Daniel turned and captured his girlfriend’s lips in a kiss, both of them elated at the news. She had done it. 

Suddenly remembering that they were outside of a hospital in full public view, Daisy pulled away from the kiss. “Let’s take this home?” 

He grinned and grabbed her hand, continuing their walk to the car, going home to continue what they had started in a more private setting. 

Later that evening, after their own celebrations, they messaged their family and asked if they could do a last minute Framework meeting. Other than May and Coulson, who were still hanging around D.C., everyone else was spread out across the world. Mack was on duty aboard the helicarrier and YoYowas with him, removed from active duty until after the baby was born. Kora was on a mission, Bobbi and Hunter were still on their undercover assignment, and Fitzsimmons were still in Scotland. 

But they all agreed to it, and at 5 o’clock by Daisy and Daniel’s time they connected to the link to find everyone already waiting in the room, which Fitz had programmed to look like the common room from the Playground, when they had been based there all those years ago. Sitting down on one of the deep couches, they finally noticed the worried looks on everyone’s faces. A flash of guilt washed over her as it suddenly crossed Daisy’s mind that they all knew her most recent scans were earlier this week, and upon receiving her message they had clearly begun preparing themselves for the worst. 

“You guys can stop worrying,” Daisy said, the first person to speak and break up the others’ dreadful silence. “I’m sure May doesn’t appreciate the overwhelming emotion of fear radiating off of all of you.” 

“Please, Dais, no jokes,” May sighed. “Tell us you have news.” 

“We do have news,” Daniel said, no longer able to keep the grin from spreading across his face as he squeezed Daisy’s hand a little tighter in his, silently prompting her to share what the doctor had told them that morning. 

“Cancer’s all gone,” she said, her smile growing to match Daniel’s. “I’m in remission.” 

The room exploded into sighs of relief, cheers, and excited laughter. Thanks to Fitz’s latest update on the Framework technology, they were actually able to make physical contact while in the system, and Daisy stood to meet Kora and Jemma, who were immediately upon her, hugging tightly with tears in their eyes. As her sisters finally pulled away, Mack stood behind them, his arms wide open for her to press herself against his massive chest. He squeezed her tight, lifting her up off the ground, until she tapped his arm twice in a classic sparring signal to loosen up. 

“Sorry about that,” he laughed sheepishly. 

“It’s alright. You know I love those big Mack hugs, they’re just a little tougher on your body when you’ve lost half your muscle mass,” she admitted. “Doesn’t mean I’ll ever turn them down, though.” 

“Plus, he’s hugging you for me too. There’s no way I’m getting my whale of a belly to jump up out of this chair like all you young and fit and  _ unpregnant _ people.” Yoyo said with a joking groan, For all her complaining she had certainly kept her athletic figure through all nine months of her pregnancy and didn’t look as if she was about to give birth within two weeks, but Daisy made her way over to where she was sitting to hug her anyway. 

“Don’t worry about him giving me double hugs, I’ll come to you so you don’t have to miss out,” Daisy said, sliding onto the couch to fold herself into Elena’s side, resting her head on the woman's shoulder as an arm was wrapped securely around her and held her there. Everyone began to take their seats again, and Mack moved to sit on the couch beside Daniel, taking Daisy’s original seat as she had stolen the spot next to his wife. 

The family stayed together in the virtual program for a short while, before they one by one had to drop out to return to the tasks of their crazy lives. Mack was first to go, being called off to handle a debrief. 

“We’ll be touching back down in D.C. early next week and YoYo and I are there to stay for awhile while she’s on maternity leave, so we’ll be around to visit if we get the chance,” Mack said with a smile. He and Elena were more than ready to finally meet their baby. 

“I know the hospital is the last place you’ll want to be after you’ve been there so much in the past few months, but if we don’t get to see you before I go into labor, will you come see the baby once they are born?” Elena asked. 

“You know I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Daisy smiled into the shoulder of her  _ hermana _ .

“I’ll see you afer my debrief,” Mack said to Elena, who was staying behind a little longer, considering there wasn’t much else for her to be doing outside the Framework anyway. “Goodbye everyone. And congrats, Tremors, I’m absolutely thrilled.” 

Fitzsimmons left just after him, having to put Alya to bed. Bobbi and Hunter were next, followed by Yoyo and Kora, until only Coulson, May, Daniel, and Daisy remained. 

“Were you hoping for a night alone to celebrate, or would you mind if we came by to hang out for a bit?” May asked, wiggling her eyebrows toward Daisy and laughing at the deliberate innuendo in her own question. 

“Oh, we already did plenty of celebrating on our own,” Daisy said with a devilish gleam in her eye, as both Daniel and Coulson groaned. 

“God, I did not need to know that,” Coulson complained, but his smile hadn’t left his face since she announced her test results. 

“What Daisy  _ means _ ,” Daniel said, shaking his head in mock exasperation. “Is that yes, you are more than welcome to come over. We can make dinner if you guys haven’t eaten yet.” 

“Oh no,” Coulson said. “I’m making you guys dinner. Tonight calls for Coulson’s famous grilled cheese and tomato soup.” 

“We really must be celebrating,” Daisy grinned. “We’ll see you soon then.” 

Two hours later, and the four of them were all sitting on the same couch, full of warm tomato soup and the greatest grilled cheeses on any planet— according to Daisy— and all sharing a large blanket with the T.V. on in the background of their conversations. 

“You know, you can’t keep claiming that the secret ingredient is classified,” Daisy said, poking Coulson teasingly. “You aren’t the director anymore.” 

“Oh, no no no no. That will always be classified. Just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I can start giving out agency secrets.” 

Daisy laughed, shaking her head in mock annoyance. “I’ll get you to tell me. One day you’ll cave.” 

But for now, this day, she relaxed into the back of the couch, in a cuddle pile of her mom, dad, and boyfriend, the weight of her illness finally beginning to ease off of her shoulders. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just because there’s a happy ending here doesn’t mean this is over yet!! *slightly evil laughter* See you next Wednesday!


	13. Time Bomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I feel kinda bad cuz y’all were so happy to have fluff last week and now this chapter is... not fluffy. 
> 
> {The beginning has a bit of fluff in my attempt to fix the YoYo/Daisy friendship they fractured in s5 and never truly resolved because I miss their friendship so there’s that.}

The pure euphoria they felt at finally being free— from hospitals, from chemo, from the fear of what was to come— was a feeling they almost forgot what was like. The heavy doses of chemo for her consolation therapy were still just as unpleasant as always, but as time wore on and those treatments went from once a month to every two months, life almost went back to normal. 

The possibility of having a relapse was always in the back of her mind, but in the eight months since she had been told she was in remission, none of her tests had shown signs of her cancer returning. Her hair had begun to grow back in its natural deep brown color, and she had revived her old routine of 5:00 A.M. tai chi, and basic combat work every night, rebuilding her lost strength.

Daniel had gone back to working full time, although it wasn’t much different than it had been because his part time position often stretched late past the evening. Daisy was truly part time as of now though, as she was being kept off of active duty and wasn’t cleared for field work yet. Instead she handled the tech department while she worked to make her way back to her full capabilities. 

Kora had temporarily taken over as the inhuman component to Elena’s team with Piper and Davis, while Elena was still out of field work. She and Daisy were on the same part time work schedule, so the two inhumans found themselves spending most afternoons at the Rodriguez-Mackenzie home together, keeping each other company while their significant others were still at work. Their relationship had grown more than tense while they were trying to work out how to break the time loop years ago, as did many of Daisy’s other relationships as she barely managed to live without suffering a massive breakdown from the intense fear and pressure to keep herself from destroying the world, but over the past few years they had built it back up to its former glory. Now with spending their days together, they grew closer than ever, the Inhuman sisters they were always meant to be. 

It also gave Daisy the chance to spend as much time as she could with her goddaughter, little Valeria Faith, and gave Elena time to catch up on much needed sleep. Val seemed to have inherited her mother’s seemingly boundless energy, and at eight months old still rarely slept through the night, but when Aunt Daisy held her and sent light vibrations through her blankets, she seemed to drop right off to sleep, giving Elena some much appreciated peace and quiet. 

One afternoon, Valeria was contentedly playing on her own, throwing a stuffed monkey (a Christmas gift from the Fitzsimmons, picked out by Alya herself) across the rug and crawling as fast as her little arms and legs could take her to retrieve it. A rerun of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. was playing on the T.V., but Elena could tell that Daisy’s mind wasn’t on the show, following her line of sight to see that she had been gazing longingly at the infant playing on the floor in front of them for over fifteen minutes. 

“You guys are going to have this too, ya know,” Elena said suddenly, pausing the show and pulling Daisy out of her daze. 

“What?” Daisy asked, wondering if she missed something while she was lost in thought. 

“This.” Elena gestures around them, nodding specially to the young girl, who had paused her personal game of fetch to chew on the monkey’s tail and look up, eyes wide and innocent, toward her aunt and mom. 

Daisy started to open her mouth to interject, but Elena cut her off. “I know, I know, it won’t look exactly like ours. But you’ll find a little boy or girl or two who are missing their families and you’ll give that to them, and you’ll build your own version of this.” 

“Thank you,” Daisy said sincerely. She knew that it would take a while for them to reach that point in their lives; they both liked the way things were now, and wanted to take things slow, which  _ 2015 Daisy  _ would have found absolutely preposterous, but  _ now Daisy _ , the Daisy who had a Daniel Sousa in her life, found taking their time and just enjoy life perfectly natural. She knew someday they would get married, start looking into adoption and foster programs, and have this semi-domestic life. But as much as she felt herself craving it, she was in no rush to get there. Because now they  _ could _ get there. She had a future again. 

That’s what they all thought. 

Until shortly before her 10 month check up, a deep rooted pain began settling its way into her side. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, not like gunshots or stab wounds, or even cramps. It was just there. And deep. And constant.

And she just knew. 

They went back to the hospital for testing a week earlier than initially planned. Daniel sat beside Daisy with both their eyes fogged by unshed tears, as he let her squeeze his hand through the blood withdrawal, on the wheelchair ride to the x ray room (where he had to stand outside and wait), and through the long needle being inserted through her side and into her hip bone, extracting samples of the marrow inside. 

When they got home from the appointment Kora was waiting for them with a worried look and a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup, which Daisy was too upset and distracted to be bothered with. Daniel helped her into bed and after trying and failing to coax at least a few spoons of the warm broth, just set the bowl aside and stroked her short, newly grown hair until her breathing evened out and she dropped off to sleep. 

Daniel clicked off the light and quietly slipped out of the room to find Kora swirling her now cold soup around her bowl, her mind someplace else. He collected her bowl and poured hers and Daisy’s soup back into the pot and turned the stove heat low to reheat the meal. 

“How long until the results come back?” she asked. 

“Four days. We go back on Friday.” 

“Okay.” 

Reladdling two bowls of soup, Daniel and Kora sat across from each other and ate in silence, the other noises coming from the clinking of their spoons. They didn’t move once their dinners were gone, instead just staying in their seats in silent worry and frustration. 

“She was doing so well,” Kora finally spoke up. She was taking her sister’s sudden downturn almost as hard as Daisy was. 

“We always knew this was a possibility,” Daniel tried to remind her, or maybe remind himself. “Jemma told us, when she went into remission, that with acute myeloid leukemia there was a high occurrence of relapse.” 

“I know. We were just so excited that she was doing better that— that—”

“That we blocked the possibility from our minds,” Daniel finished for her. “I know. We were all doing the same thing.” 

The next few days passed by with relative inactivity. May and Coulson came by for dinner Wednesday night. Elena brought Val over Thursday afternoon, which provided Daisy with a much needed, but temporary, distraction from the next day’s meeting with her oncology team. She spent nearly four hours on Facetime with Jemma that night. Daisy had to convince her not to drop everything and fly back to the States, because as desperately as she wanted to see her sister, she knew that she couldn’t keep requesting long trips off of her work in Scotland to visit. She spent most of the call having Jemma explain typical relapse procedures and prognoses. She wanted to know exactly what was coming, no matter how bad. 

But nothing Jemma had tried to prepare her for was relevant the next morning when Dr. Warren sat across from her and Daniel. 

“There’s no sign of recurrence of leukemia cells in your bone marrow yet,” Warren started, but neither Daisy or Daniel felt any form of relief at the ominous  _ yet _ at the end of the sentence. 

“Yet?” 

“We almost missed it at first,” he said, as he passed an X-ray of her chest and abdomen to them across his desk and pointed out a small, white mass that could be seen on her lower left rib cage. “We were utterly confused because you were displaying symptoms of relapse but with no actual relapse. But then remember your insistence of the pain in your side, and took a closer look at your X-rays. This little spot shouldn’t be there, and we’re going to have to go in and do some more testing to confirm, but my guess is that this is an isolated myeloid sarcoma.” 

“So what does that mean?” Daniel asked the question Daisy was wondering as well, but after watching her deflate at the mention of more testing, he knew she wouldn’t be the one to ask it. 

“The reason there were no leukemia cells in your bone marrow is likely because they all clumped here into a small tumor on one of your ribs. It’s rare, but not unheard of, especially with AML,” Dr. Warren explained. 

“And what did you mean by she’s not relapsed  _ yet _ ?” 

“You have technically relapsed, but it isn’t a typical relapse for AML, considering the bone marrow is still looking healthy. But if the results from the testing we’re going to do today confirm that this  _ is  _ a myeloid sarcoma, you are almost certain to have a full relapse in the bone marrow within 8 months.” 

“But what if the tumor goes away before that happens?” Daniel asked. 

“Even with treatment and if the tumor shrinks or disappears completely, the sarcoma is a precursor to a full bone marrow relapse. If it doesn’t happen right away, it will soon.”

“So it’s like the clock on a ticking time bomb,” Daisy said for the first time since Dr. Warren had shown them the X-rays. “Telling us in advance to prepare ourselves for shit to hit the fan all over again. Except the clock is paused and the bomb is still armed and we have no way of knowing how long we have until it goes off.” 

“I guess so. Seems your spy training is coming in handy with the analogies,” Warren said. “So as we’ve already tried two rotations of pretty intense chemo, if this does turn out to me a myeloid sarcoma, I want to start with a more targeted approach and work on it with some radiation therapy.” 

“Radiation?” Daniel’s head shot up. “You’re not serious!” 

“Daniel,” Daisy said softly, putting a hand reassuringly on his knee. “It’s a common treatment option for cancers.” 

“But your exposure to that radiation is what caused all this!” He exclaimed, still confused by certain aspects of modern medicine. “How do we know this isn’t going to restart this whole shitty experience a few years down the line?” 

“We don’t,” Warren said bluntly. “It’s not common, but it does increase her risk for developing another cancer in the future. And I know that’s hard, but for now that’s your best option,” he said, closing the folder with the scans and standing up. “I’m really sorry, Daisy. I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear. I truly wish I could have something else to give you. Now I’m sure you know your way back to the oncology ward from here, one of the nurses at the desk will take you to your room and then someone will get you started on the testing to confirm.” 

They both nodded and Daniel stood up, helping Daisy up and holding her steady with an arm securely around her waist. She had, as usual, refused a wheelchair and so they made the slow journey back to the oncology ward and into her room. 

By the time all the testing was finished she was exhausted and in a massive amount of pain from all the poking and prodding, and collapsed into bed as soon as they finally got home. Daniel brought her a plate of a lasagna that Coulson had dropped off earlier, and coaxed a few bites into her until she finally pushed it away and refused any more. He and Kora ate together yet again, and after the meal she took over dish duty so he could go be with Daisy. 

She was mostly asleep when he carefully crawled into bed and settled himself with his chest cocooning her back. He felt her sigh against him, and he held her a little tighter. 

Nothing about today had gone as they expected, and nothing was going to go as they were hoping from here on out, at least for as far into the future as they could imagine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also note on baby Rodriguez-Mackenzie’s name:  
> Valeria is a popular name in Colombia (according to Google I’m not Colombian lol) and OF COURSE you know where Faith is from 😉


	14. Anywhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let’s pretend this isn’t a boring filler chapter oops

Six months of targeted radiation therapy later, and the tumor, which was relatively small to begin with, was gone. 

The night she came home from her scan with the news that she was in remission once again wasn’t a night of celebration and excitement as her last remission had been. 

Daisy was silent the whole ride home, Daniel staying quiet in the driver’s seat beside her, knowing that all she needed in that moment was space to think, and his hand firm and reassuring on her thigh, tethering her to the real world so she wouldn’t get trapped too deep in her head. They got inside their apartment, ordered dinner in, and spent the evening watching The Office, but didn’t laugh at a single quip, their minds so far from the show that they hardly could tell what was happening at all. 

They knew that the tumor’s disappearance should have come as a relief, but all it brought was the knowledge that  _ yes _ , this part may be over, but it was only a matter of time before the cancer worked its way back into her bone marrow and her bloodstream and throughout her body. 

Daisy felt, as she had connected earlier, like she was a ticking time bomb with a broken clock. 

Except this one she couldn’t disarm with her powers. Somehow she preferred the nuclear bomb to this, which is a statement she never thought she would make. Robots and aliens and nukes Quake could handle. Cancer was a different story. 

_ But it shouldn’t be.  _ She suddenly told herself.  _ Every other war I’ve fought I have been able to find time in between battles to truly  _ live _. I can’t let this be any different.  _

Daisy reached for the remote and paused the show. 

“We can’t keep letting this dictate our lives,” she announced out of the blue, finally breaking the suffocating silence. 

“What?” Daniel asked, caught off guard by her sudden declaration. 

“This is shit. The relapse, and the treatments, and the waiting. But we can’t keep sulking around as if being upset is going to change anything at all,” she said. “I miss  _ us _ . I miss when you were my  _ boyfriend  _ and not just my primary caregiver, or whatever title the hospital assigned you.”

“You know that there is nothing I’d rather be doing than caring for you,” he started to interject, before she cut him off. 

“I’m not saying I don’t want your help. I love that you are always by my side without wavering. But we can also just be…  _ us _ . That’s how we fight this the right way, just as we did when we ran missions out in space. As a team. Not as patient and caregiver, but just as Daisy and Daniel.”

“Quake and Danny Boy, taking on the world,” he chuckled, showing his agreement. 

“Always,” she whispered as she closed the gap between their lips and he wrapped his arms around her waist, Michael Scott long forgotten from his paused position on the TV. 

It wasn’t like they  _ forgot _ she had cancer after that. They just worked hard every day to try not to let the looming relapse rain on their parade. Daisy got back to work running tech support for high clearance operations, Daniel running strategic mission planning, and spending their nights together with each other, with friends, and with family. Kora had taken a short term operation out in space— as short term as a deep space mission could be— but they had been FaceTiming her regularly anyway. They took a quinjet to the Fitzsimmons’ cottage in Scotland for a long weekend, visited Bobbi and Hunter another weekend where they were stationed in Spain, and babysat Valeria for a few days when YoYo was needed on a last minute assignment in the field. 

It made taking advantage of the time that they had so much easier, and everyone was relieved that they had that small opportunity. 

But a month later, when her glands began to swell up, and her whole body started to constantly ache, and every sudden movement was met with a wave of nausea, Daisy was almost relieved. 

Not that she was glad that she was relapsing. 

_ Again.  _

But she was glad that the  _ when, where, how long  _ was over. 

This time, now that they knew it was coming sooner or later, they had a detailed, more aggressive treatment plan already in place. Three days of continuous chemo through her port to weaken the cancer cells, five days of radiation to try to kill them, then six days of rest to give her body some form of relief from the poisons that couldn’t differentiate between the cancer cells that were killing her and the inhuman cells keeping her alive, so it attacked them all. 

So as soon as her testing confirmed the full relapse, she found herself in a bed, hooked up to a number of IV lines and monitors, and her newest chemo concoction being pumped through the port in her chest with Daniel in the chair beside her. With all the changes to her regimen, the immediate nausea, dizziness, and vomiting were exactly the same. The one difference this time around was that instead of having a private room, she got put into a double. 

She hated it. 

It wasn’t that she disliked Elise. She seemed nice enough, even though they hadn’t spent too much time together, and neither of them talked much. She was hospitalized indefinitely for her third relapse of Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Her wife wasn’t able to be with her as often as Daniel was there, as they had two young boys at home, but they FaceTimed every day and she got a sitter on Thursday nights to come visit. That was pretty much all Daisy knew about her. But yeah, Elise wasn’t the problem. 

The problem was it had taken a long time— and a ton of severely traumatic experiences— for her to feel comfortable being vulnerable around Daniel, Coulson, May, Jemma, and the rest of her family. But here was this total stranger seeing her in her weakest moments as she retched even after her stomach had been emptied and shivered as chills enveloped her body and couldn’t even keep her eyes open without the room spinning all around her as she clutched Daniels hand as tightly as she could manage, her concentration on the vibrations of his heartbeat the only thing keeping her from going over the edge. And on top of everything she was dealing with physically and emotionally, there was this woman she hardly knew watching her through it all. 

And that is what she hated. 

She would never admit it though, because being vulnerable enough to admit that she was feeling vulnerable was too much for her. So she just closed her eyes, did her best to pretend there was no one there but Daniel, and tried not to allow the dread and embarrassment take her over too bad. 

Up until Daisy’s third day of her first radiation cycle, the only times Daniel wasn’t at her side were when he would go get food from the cafeteria and when he would use the bathroom, but he always did that at times when she was asleep, so she didn’t notice much. But that day he had gotten called away for a meeting to negotiate for an emergency refuel landing on Xataxine for one of their deep space vessels, the one Kora was currently based on, so she found herself alone for the first time in weeks. She used to love, even  _ crave _ , alone time when they were all stuck living together on bases, planes, time machines, and spaceships. But she had always been a bit clingy when she was sick, even as a kid— a foster family once sent her back to the orphanage when she came down with the flu. Now that she felt awful  _ all the time _ , she found herself not wanting to be apart from Daniel or someone else from her family. 

A few hours into her first day on her own, she was bored and overwhelmed and upset and and lonely and feeling every negative emotion that her family usually helped her deal with in their full power. 

“It sucks, doesn’t it?” 

“What?” Daisy looked over to her roommate, surprised out of her thoughts by her sudden question. 

“When they can’t be here,” Elise elaborated. “It’s not fun.” 

“I don’t know how you do it,” Daisy sighed, realizing how she felt right now must be how Elise felt all the time. 

“You get used to it,” she said. “And I know that she’s at home taking care of the kids while I can’t, so it’s not like she’s not here because she doesn’t want to be. You learn to remind yourself that just because you can’t physically be with them, doesn’t mean they don’t care or they don’t want to be with you or they aren’t thinking about you. Trust me, if your husband is anything like my wife—”

“He’s not my husband,” Daisy cut in quickly, unable to stop herself. They talked about it and they both  _ knew  _ they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, but she still wasn’t ready for that step and he respected that. “We’re not married,” she reiterated, a little less harshly. The  _ yet _ hung in the air unspoken. 

“Well he’s got more dedication than a lot of caregivers I’ve seen come through here. He might as well be,” Elise shrugged. “But either way, with the amount of devotion he’s shown just in the week you’ve been in here with me, I can tell that he probably can’t focus on whatever he’s doing right now because he’s so distracted by the thought of not being able to be with you.” 

Daisy chuckled at that. “I sure hope he can pay attention. He’s negotiating with an alien and I don’t think we can afford for him to mess that up.” 

“An  _ alien? _ Like an inhuman?”

“No, like an actual alien. They’re video chatting from outside the galaxy, if you can believe that.” She had gotten the all clear from Mack to share small, non-crucial details about her S.H.I.E.L.D. life, now that the whole world knew about aliens and inhumans and that S.H.I.E.L.D. was a legitimate organization once again, and the more they talked the more Daisy felt like Elise was someone she could trust.They were stuck in the same shitty cancer boat. Might as well make friends. “Crazy world, isn’t it?” 

“What exactly is it that you guys do?” 

“We’re S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Usually we’d both be out in the field but now,” she gestured to the IV pole beside her bed. 

“I knew your name sounded familiar!” Elise said, a look of realization coming across her face. “A few years back, you made all sorts of news as a vigilante while undercover. Quake. You’re inhuman?” 

Daisy panicked. A lot of people were still skirty around the idea of inhumans, and she didn’t know where her new roommate stood on that side of the scale. Just as she was warming up to being friends, her “sabbatical” from S.H.I.E.L.D. and Mace’s publicity stunt from years ago was still biting her in the ass. “They didn’t tell you I was inhuman? God, I’m sorry, if you want to request a room transfer—”

“What are you talking about?” Elise interrupted Daisy’s panicked rambling. 

“Sorry, I— I don’t always know where people stand on their beliefs on inhumans and I used to fight back and challenge them, but now I’m just so tired of fighting. If it makes you uncomfortable that I’m inhuman I’m sure the hospital can find somewhere else for me.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous! Who cares if you’re inhuman? You’re still a person and you deserve the same respect. And I’m sorry for all the shit people have put you through because of it, but Quake? She’s a superhero. You deserve the credit for that.” 

“Thank you,” Daisy said sincerely. “That really means a lot.” 

Daisy ran a hand through her short hair and had a clump of it come out in her hand.  _ Here we go again _ , she thought sadly, but she had been a little more prepared for it this time around. Maybe May would stop by and help her shave it again. 

“Speaking of Quake,” Daisy said with a sad laugh, changing the mood of the conversation. She reached down to the bag beside her bed and pulled out the deep purple beanie and held it out to show Elise, who laughed. “My niece got me this when I was first diagnosed. Her father, of course, thinks it’s hilarious.” 

They went on like that for a while, laughing, sharing stories, getting to know each other better. They stopped when a nurse came in to start Elise’s infusion, but Daisy found herself in much better spirits than she had been earlier. She drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face, and woke up to Daniel holding her hand, absentmindedly rubbing circles on the back of her hand with his thumb as he read she’d seemed to be a mission report on his tablet. 

“Refuel went well?” She asked, her voice raspy with sleep. 

“Good morning,” he said, realizing she was awake. 

“It’s nighttime,” she groaned, looking outside into the darkness out her window, and repeated, “how did the refuel go?” 

“It was fine,” he sighed, looking back down at his tablet. “Took way longer than I would have liked and it was tedious as all hell, which makes for a night full of paperwork. But they landed fine and got the supplies they needed to continue on to Loratraxia.” 

“That’s a relief.” 

“And I talked to Kora. She wanted you to call her when you woke up, says it’s been too long.” 

“It’s been a week.” 

“I’m just relaying her message.” 

“It’s okay. I miss her too. I’ll call her in the morning. Right now I just want to go back to sleep.” 

She shifted to the far edge of her bed, patting the spot on the thin mattress she had carved out for him. Daniel squeezed himself in the spot and wrapped her up in his arms as she curled herself into him, and he carefully situated and moved around her tubes and wires so nothing was being pulled or blocked off. 

Daisy’s mind drifted back to what Elise said earlier, about how the people who love us always love us, no matter where they are in the world. She knew this was true. May and Coulson were a twenty five minute drive from the hospital. Mack and Elena and Valeria were off in the home they had made out of their floating headquarters. Jemma and Fitz and Alya were halfway across the world. And Kora was halfway across the universe. Daisy could feel their love from no matter where they were. 

Daniel too, of course. But right now, curled into his chest, she knew her favorite place to feel his love was when he was right beside her, picking her up when she hit the wall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be Christmas fluff so yayy (also I’m going to try to post it by Friday) and then after that the story picks up with big pain
> 
> *laughs evilly * Maddie, Prachi, Autumn, and Eama I’m warning you hehe 😼


	15. Christmas Surprises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy short chapter because I was busy and I didn’t have a lot of time but happy Christmas if you celebrate and happy day if you don’t :D

It was hard to get into the Christmas spirit when you spent nearly every day leading up to it in the hospital, but their ultimate Christmas surprise came early on December 22nd when Dr. Warren showed them Daisy’s latest scans, completely cancer free once again. 

They packed up their belongings from their room and said goodbye to Elise, who congratulated Daisy at least four times, and made her promise she wouldn’t see her back in the hospital again, even though both women knew there was no controlling relapses. They could always hope. 

Daisy and Daniel were both elated, and unlike with her last remission, relapse was the farthest thing on their list of concerns. Daisy would get to spend Christmas at home, cancer free. The only thing more she could have wished for was for her family to be together for the holiday, but everyone had other commitments to stick to. They agreed to meet up in the Framework, but it would have been nice to see them to deliver their good news in person. 

The exhaustion of chemo and being sick and her weakened body had Daisy falling asleep on the couch and Daniel carrying her to their bed to rest in peace and comfort after lunch on Christmas Eve. Christmas surprise number two (for Daisy at least, Daniel knew the whole time) came when Daisy slowly blinked her eyes open to the sound of hushed voices in the kitchen. Well, hushed voices and one  _ attempting _ to be a hushed voice, which she immediately recognized the British-Scottish twang of her niece. It took a minute for her confused, still half asleep brain to register that according to her sister two days ago, they would be spending Christmas in Scotland with Fitz’s mom. 

“Jemma?” She called from the bed, her stiff muscles not wanting her to get up quite yet. Little footsteps pattered quickly down the hallway and through the cracked door, Alya’s still bleach blonde hair flashing from the doorway and jumping immediately into the bed, forgetting to be gentle and flipping practically on top of Daisy.

“Aunt Daisy you’re finally awake!” She said, burrowing her face into the shocked inhuman’s shoulder. 

“Alya! How— what— I thought you were spending Christmas with your Nan!” 

Jemma peared around the corner of the doorframe. 

“Surprise!” She shouted with a huge smile on her face.

Jemma made her way around the bed and laid herself down on Daisy’s other side, curling herself around her sister. 

“Daniel helped arrange this little surprise for you. We were going to visit and celebrate with you in the hospital, but since they let you go, we get to spend it here,” she said, Daisy literally feeling the smile in her voice. Daniel and Daisy had agreed they weren’t going to tell anyone until Christmas Day about her remission, so as far as Jemma knew, she was just having a good week during her break from treatment and had gotten good timing on her treatment schedule. “Surprise number one, at least. Number two is all Fitzsimmons magic.” 

“Surprise number two?” Daisy slowly unwrapped herself from her niece and sister, sitting up as Fitz and Daniel appeared in the doorway. 

“Show Aunt Daisy your shirt, Al,” Fitz said. 

Daisy looked over at Alya, who straightened out her shirt so her aunt could read the writing on the front. 

_ Only child, expiration date July 2024.  _

“Oh my god! You’re serious?” 

Daisy’s face lit up looking from Alya to Fitz to Jemma, who nodded in confirmation. 

“Oh my god!” 

She threw her arms around her sister, who returned the hug tightly. Finally pulling away, she gestured for Fitz to come over. He joined them in the bed, allowing Daisy to hug him before settling at the foot of the bed. 

“My official due date is July 1,” Jemma said. “The day before your birthday.” 

“Well then, little one,” Daisy leaned in closer to Jemma’s still nonexistent bump. “You better hang in there for an extra day so we can be birthday twins.” 

Everyone laughed except Jemma, who groaned. 

“I  _ swear _ if I have another child who does anything and everything Auntie Daisy says, we’re going to have a problem. I better not be pregnant any longer than I absolutely have to be.” 

After talking a bit more about the newest addition to the family, Daisy gestures toward Daniel, who joined them on the bed so they were all sitting together, wrapped around blankets and pillows. 

“While we’re sharing surprises,” Daisy said, looking toward Daniel, who nodded in encouragement, knowing exactly what she was referring to, even if she was doing it a day earlier than planned. “The reason I’m home now isn’t just because I’m having a good week. We got the results from my most recent scans two days ago, and there is no cancer left. We finally hit another remission.” 

Jemma burst into tears, immediately throwing her arms around Daisy and muttering something about stupid overactive pregnancy hormones. 

“Hopefully the last remission too,” Fitz added, wrapping his arms around both Daisy and his wife, who was still bawling into Daisy’s shoulder. 

“Group hug!” Alya exclaimed and jumped into the mix. “Uncle Danny come join us!” 

As Daisy sat in her bed, surrounded by the loving, supportive arms of her brother, sister, boyfriend, and niece, she knew that this was the best Christmas she could have hoped for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m in a dreadful mood because my editing software crashed and all my drafts were deleted and I have to start over on like 22 drafts so maybe comment something if you want even though this chapter is lame and unexciting because comments make me smile and I really need that rn ANYWAYYYY thanks for reading :))


	16. Back to Normal?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY MADDIE I PROMISED YOU THIS WOULD BE UP BY THE END OF WEDNESDAY AND TECHNICALLY IN YOUR TIME ZONE ITS STILL WEDNESDAY SO YAY

After this remission, Daisy worked twice as hard to get her body back into shape. She was sure that this was it, and she wanted to be back to peak condition so she could get back to field mission work and back to using her powers again. 

One of the most infuriating things while she was sick was the fact that she could constantly feel the buzzing and shaking of everything around her radiating under her skin, but couldn’t pull together the energy to release the vibrations. But this around, her treatment team worked with her to put together a training schedule that wouldn’t push her too hard during her consolidation therapy but would put her back on track to regain her strength as quickly as she could. 

She was allowed out on her first minor field mission on July 1, Jemma’s exact due date and the day before her 35th birthday. 

It was the tiniest mission. Intelligence gathering only. She was assigned for the hacking portion of the op, but they realized a week before their time frame opened that it was an on site access point only, so she was needed in action. Of course it made their jobs a little more difficult, but Daisy was thrilled. She hadn’t been in the field since they were out in space. 

Daniel fretted about it every day before launch day, and Daisy was almost getting upset with him. She knew he was mostly just upset that he wouldn’t be out by her side during the mission, but it made the most sense for Daisy and YoYo to go in together, just the two of them. The fewer agents the better, and the two inhumans could get in fast, get the intelligence they needed, and get out before anyone knew they were there. Hopefully. 

He helped her into her Quake suit, which normally he would find, ahem,  _ very  _ attractive and would be sure to kiss her hard against a wall before allowing her to finish zipping up the front, but today all he could do was pace back and forth around the room as she secured her gauntlets and zipped up her boots. 

“Daniel.”

He stopped and looked over at the exasperated tone of her voice. 

“Sorry.” He walked over to where he was standing and held her haha around her gauntlets. “I always hated the morning of your missions.” 

“Really? You never mentioned it. I mean, I know it’s been awhile, but if I recall correctly you are usually quite, hmm, let’s call it  _ excited _ whenever I put the suit on.” 

“Oh hush,” he laughed, before his face grew serious again. “I never let it show because I know you can take care of yourself. But mission work is always unpredictable and even you aren’t invincible. Especially now, considering—” 

“You don’t think I’m back to full strength,” she said, finishing his thought. 

“Daisy, it hasn’t even been a full year. You only officially finished chemo a month ago.” 

“Okay!” She shouted, trying to pull away, but his hold on her gauntlets kept her facing him. “I’m not as strong as I used to be! I’m not! Is that what you want me to say?”

“Daisy, I—” 

“But I’ve been working my ass off for months regaining my strength, building back my muscle mass, increasing my energy levels. And my fight instincts? My hacking skills? My powers? They’re all still there and I can’t just leave everything I’ve worked toward for nearly ten years behind just because I got sick! We talked about this! Life can’t keep slipping away; I will not let this cancer steal anything else from me.” 

“I’m not trying to keep you from going on the mission,” Daniel said sincerely, after she finished her outburst, making sure that was the first thing he assured her of. “This is part of who you are and I would never  _ ever  _ try to change that about you. I love the strong, powerful, badass part of you who gives everything to protect those who can’t protect themselves. But just let me worry.” 

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry for shouting.” 

“No, you were right. I’m sorry for being overbearing.” 

“No, you were just looking out for me.” 

They didn’t argue often, but when they did it usually ended like this. Both of them apologizing for whatever action or event sparked their side of the argument, while at the same time both acknowledging the validity of the other’s point of view. And usually sex would follow, but they were in a bit of a time crunch and Elena was standing right outside the door, waiting for them to finish. 

Finally making their way through the hangar and to their quinjet, Daisy and YoYo greeted their pilot and waved goodbye to Daniel. 

“Take care of her,” he said jokingly to YoYo. 

“Please,” the speedster scoffed. “ _ She’ll  _ be taking care of  _ me. _ Besides, the mission will be fine. In and out. We have a plane to Scotland to catch, can’t be late for that!” 

“Exactly,” Daisy said, grinning. Jemma had asked Daisy, Elena, and May if they would be with her when she had the baby, and they had all been honored to be asked. Fitz would be there as well and he was great and all, but Alya’s birth had proved that even with his own kid he was still squeamish as all hell, and Jemma wanted her sisters and her mother figure to be in the delivery room with her too this time around. “We may have missed out on the first Fitzsimmons baby birth, but I am sure as hell not about to miss the second one too.” 

The two inhumans turned and began to board the quinjet, until Daniel spoke up one last time. 

“Daisy!”

She turned and looked back, just as he rushed in and kissed her. She smiled as they broke apart, reminded of their second (technically his first?) kiss. 

“I’ll see you when I get back.” They both smiled and nodded, much more confident in her statement this time around than she had been the first time she responded that way. 

“Alright, alright,” YoYo groaned jokingly. “Enough from the walking  _ telenovelas _ . We’ve got a base to break into and data to steal.” 

Daisy planted one last quick kiss on Daniel’s mouth before turning on her heel and boarding the quinjet, taking a seat beside Elena and buckling in for take off. 

Overall, the mission went nearly as planned. Things got a bit dicey at one point, when a group of unexpected security guards came around mid hack and began firing their guns and nearly caught both agents off guard, but YoYo sped in front of the bullets and carefully picked each one out of the air mid flight, and a flick of Daisy’s wrist sent the whole team of guards flying into the wall, out cold. Everything else went off without a hitch, and by the time they had landed back in D.C., gotten the flash drive with the intel Daisy had gathered back to the correct unit, and showered the dust and grime of the mission off of them, although they were both exhausted and sore from the day’s work, they were both safe and still riding out their adrenaline highs. May, Coulson, and Mack with Val had arrived at the base, packed and ready for the quinjet ride to Scotland. 

10 hours later and officially July 2nd, they were touching down on the landing pad Fitz had put in their massive yard, Elena and Daisy both having to be shaken awake after crashing to sleep on the shoulder of each of their respective significant others. 

“Happy birthday, love,” Daniel whispered to Daisy as she lifted her head from his shoulder. 

“Wow I feel  _ so  _ much older than when I went to sleep,” she grumbled, sleep still clouding her voice. 

“Don’t worry, you look just as beautiful as yesterday.”

“Dork,” she laughed into his lips.

“Alright, enough from you two,” May groaned, only semi jokingly. “It's bad enough that we all have to watch it, but I’m feeling all of  _ that _ and I’d really like to not.” 

“Damn, first YoYo, now you?” Daisy laughed, pulling away with mock indignance. “God, just let me kiss my boyfriend in peace.”

After finally exiting the quinjet with their luggage, the group was greeted by Alya sprinting down the driveway and nearly pummeling Daisy over, before Daniel swooped in ahead of the girl and caught her first, her laughter ringing through the garden. 

“I know Aunt Daisy’s been feeling much better, but she and Auntie YoYo just got home from a mission and they are both very tired, Al, so you still have to be gentle,” Coulson said, taking his granddaughter from Daniel and propping her up on his hip. 

“Oh shut it, old man, and give me my niece,” Daisy laughed, holding her arms out and pulling Alya into a hug. 

“My turn, chica,” YoYo snatched the child away, and Alya giggled as she was passed from family member to family member until had gotten a chance with her. 

“Daddy and Mama are in the house waiting!” she said as May finally set her down on the soft green grass. “We’d better hurry though, they were just waiting for you to get here so Grandpa and Uncle Mack and Uncle Danny could watch me while they could go to the hospital to have the baby!”

“Holy shit,” Daisy muttered under her breath, starting to run as fast as she could toward the cottage, ignoring Alya’s call of “ _ Aunt Daisy said a bad word!” _ from behind her. 

Bursting through the front door, she found Jemma waiting behind it and their arms were around each other in a second, as best they could around Jemma’s bump. 

“Happy birthday!” was the first thing Jemma said when they finally pulled apart. 

“Happy… day of giving birth?” Daisy tried, grimacing at the awful greeting. 

“Thank god you’re here,” Fitz said, coming around the corner behind them just as the rest of the group made their way through the front door. “We were about to dump Alya at the neighbor’s place and tell you to just meet us at the hospital.” 

“Well we’d better get going. We’ll keep you updated.” 

The drive was only 20 minutes long, but it felt like an eternity. May was driving, ever the calm and collected pilot, while YoYo sat in the passenger's seat and Daisy and Fitz sat on either side of Jemma. They discovered early in the trip that Daisy cause feel the vibrations of each of Jemma’s contractions before they hit, so she acted as an alarm clock, letting them know each time one was about to start. 

Their little pattern of support continued once they were in the delivery room, and at 11:43 P.M. baby Brodie Philip Fitzsimmons was born, healthy and screaming at the top of his little lungs. 

Once everything had calmed down, and they had called the rest of the group back at home, and Daisy was holding her tiny nephew in her hairs, she felt tears in her eyes much like she had the first time she met Alya. 

“I told you we would be birthday twins,” she smiled over at Jemma, who only groaned mockingly. 

“ _ Great _ . At least with Alya we had a few years where we were the bosses and not Aunt Daisy, but it seems Brodie’s already following your orders.” 

Everyone laughed, and Daisy found herself thanking God, science, the Universe, anyone who was out there, that she had been given the chance to live to see this. 

Daisy and Daniel took the next few weeks off, calling in “mission recovery” time, but Mack knew when he got the request that they really just wanted time to spend in Scotland with Fitzsimmons and the new baby, and that both Jemma and Fitz would be glad for the extra sets of hands, so he approved it without question. After that it was back to D.C., back to work, back to missions, back to normal  _ unretired  _ life. 

They did have one weekend planned, beginning of October to go camping for the weekend. After finding out that Daisy had never been camping—  _ “Daniel who the hell would have taken me camping growing up? The nuns?” “Good point, good point. In that case _ I’ll  _ take you. I'll find something nice, not too rustic but still outside and in the woods and beautiful.” _ — Daniel had found a small cabin, one bed but with a simple kitchenette and a porch with a fireplace overlooking a small creek. 

Everyone knew about that trip, considering how excited Daisy was about it and the fact that she had been talking about it nonstop ever since they booked it. A few people, including May, had been told about another small plan for that weekend, so when she got a phone call from Daniel two weeks before the trip, she assumed it was him  _ once again _ calling her to ask another question about it. What she didn’t expect, what his panicked and jumbled voice spewing complete nonsense from the other side of the phone. 

“Hold on, Daniel,” she said, trying to calm him without starting to worry herself. “Take a deep breath and say that again, but slower.” 

“It’s Daisy.” 

The moment the words were out of his mouth, her heart sank. 

“She was in the kitchen and I went to the bathroom for one minute and when I came out she was on the floor and she’s not waking up, I don’t know what to do!” 

“Okay, Daniel, first things first have you called 911?” she asked, trying her best to stay calm. 

“Not yet. I— I panicked, with Mack and Elena on the helicarrier who knows where, and Coulson back out traveling, and Kora still in space, and Fitzsimmons across the ocean, you’re the only one near our place right now and so you were the first person I thought to call.” 

“Okay. That’s alright just try to stay calm for me and for Daisy, okay? Check that she’s breathing.” 

“She is, but it’s shallow.”

“Okay, good. I’m going to hang up so you can call 911. Answer their questions and ask them for an ambulance. I’ll meet you at the hospital.” 

“Okay,” was all the response she received from Daniel, who sounded scared out of his mind, before he hung up. 

She grabbed her coat and headed out to the car, hearing the ambulance sirens in the distance and knowing exactly where they were going, all she could think of was the pit in her stomach at the reminder that the past just could not seem to leave them alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like uhhh a lot happened in this chapter but it feels to me like it was still kinda filler idk that might just be me? But like GET READY for next chapter oop.


	17. Options

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I’m sorry in advance...

Weaving through the crowded hallways, May finally found the room number the receptionist at the front desk had given her, Daniel sitting in a chair just outside the door with his head in his hands. 

“Daniel, hey,” she said softly, alerting him to her presence. 

He jumped up when she spoke, wringing his hands. “May! Hi!”

She didn’t need her empathic abilities to sense the stress, fear, and panic that was radiating off of the man, but she felt it all the same, mixing with her own dread and anxiety twisting in the pit of her stomach. 

“How is she?” 

“We’re not sure yet. She regained consciousness during the ambulance ride here and was able to talk to me and to the paramedics. She was confused, couldn’t answer any of their questions about what happened, but she hasn’t blacked out since—” he took a shuddering breath. “Since I found her.” 

“Hey, hey, hey,” May stopped him as he tried to turn away, sensing frustration begin to boil up in him. “No part of this was on you. Nothing you could have done differently would change this.” 

“Doesn’t make me feel any less awful.”

“I know. Me neither. But it doesn’t help Daisy to blame ourselves for something out of all of our control,” May reminded him, to which he nodded. “Where is she now?” 

“She was in the room for a while and the doctors and nurses were all buzzing around her for a while. They said I was in the way, which is why I’m out here. Then they took her off to do some extra scans about twenty five minutes ago, trying to figure out why she passed out.” he sighed, the grief and sadness becoming more and more apparent on his tired looking face. “But we all know what this is.” 

“Daniel, we don’t know for sure—”

“But we can make the logical assumption.” 

He sat back down heavily in the chair running a hand over his face, May softly sitting beside him and putting a hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him, but only becoming more and more overwhelmed herself. 

“Everytime this happens I get more and more afraid that this will be the one. This relapse will be the one that takes her from me.” At this point, he was mostly talking aloud to himself, May just happening to be there to listen. “Why does this keep happening to her? Especially now, just when I’m planning to finally—”

“Shh,” she suddenly cut him off, pointing down the hall to where a nurse was pushing Daisy toward them in a wheelchair. “I don’t think you want to finish that sentence anyway she can hear you. Not yet, at least.” 

He nodded in agreement, scrubbed a hand over his face one last time and forced a smile on for Daisy’s sake, then stood up just as the nurse reached them. 

“May, Danny,” Daisy said, a smile, but tired smile forming on her face. “Hi.” 

“Hey there Dais,” May smiled back at her. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” Daniel said, taking the handles of the wheelchair from the nurse, getting ready to take her back into the room. 

“Dr. Warren and a few of our other specialists are currently looking over your scans, and I believe your friend Dr. Simmons is on a conference call as well. He’ll be in to talk to you as soon as we know what we’re dealing with,” the nurse informed them. 

The trio nodded and made their way into the room, Daniel lifting Daisy into the bed. 

“I can get up and climb into a bed by myself, Daniel,” she tried to argue, but a glare from May shut her up. 

“I’m sure you can. We’re helping anyway.” 

Daisy couldn’t help an eye roll, but settled back heavily into the bed’s thin mattress, running a hand over her face. 

“Daniel, can I have my phone? I want to call Coulson,” she asked, reaching out and taking it when he pulled it from his pocket. “And would you guys mind giving me a moment alone to talk to him? I’ll text you when I’m done.” 

May and Daniel nodded, stepping back out into the hallway once more and closing the heavy door behind them to give her some privacy. They sat down again in the chairs outside the door, silently letting the busy sounds and lights of the hospital race by them. 

Once the door was closed and she was alone, Daisy took a shaky breath. It had been the craziest, most confusing day. She was getting lunch ready, she and Daniel had just started setting aside supplies to pack for their camping trip, and he had left the room to get something. And the next thing she knew, she was waking up in an ambulance with a raging headache, Daniel looking at her with a panicked look on his face, and paramedics babbling above her, giving each other orders and asking her questions. Daniel, clearly realizing her unease and confusion, reached out from his seat at the side of the ambulance and latched onto her hand, tethering her while she tried to answer the paramedics' questions, despite having no clue what was going on around her, or how she had ended up there. 

She wasn’t surprised to see May waiting with Daniel outside her door as the nurse wheeled her back after her scans, and she was grateful that she would be there too. Daniel was amazing at being her rock, but he needed someone to ground him as well, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to do that for him in that moment, considering all she wanted to do was sleep. She knew the blood loss from all their sampling would catch up to her, so she wanted to take her chance to call Coulson before she drifted off to sleep. 

He picked up after only two rings, and from his tone of voice she could tell that neither May nor Daniel had called him yet. 

“Hey there, Dais!” his voice came through the line, immediately easing the tension that had built up in her chest throughout the day. “What’s up? If you’re asking for my secret brownie recipe again for your trip, the answer is still no. A master spy-chef never reveals his secrets.” 

“It’s not that,” she said with a half hearted laugh, the only reaction to his quip that she could gather. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m back in the hospital.” 

She could hear his breath catch over the line, but he remained silent, waiting for her to continue speaking. 

“I’m still a little fuzzy on the details because I don’t really remember what exactly happened, but apparently I passed out and Daniel found me on our kitchen floor. And of course, considering my history, they called an ambulance, which is where I woke up. But they’ve just finished running their tests, and so we’re just waiting for the results.” She took a deep breath, finally finished the small speech she had prepared in her head while in the MRI machine. “I just thought you would probably want to know.” 

“Thank you for calling me,” he said, all the enthusiasm gone from his voice. “Do you want me to—” 

“No,” Daisy quickly said, stopping his thought. “Don’t come home just for this. We have no idea what it is, it could just be some fluke thing.” They both knew better than to hope for that. “Even so, there’s no reason to cut your trip short for this.” 

“Okay,” Coulson agreed. “But I was planning on being back in D.C. just after you guys come home from your trip so I can hear all about your first time camping, so I’ll still come by to see you then.” 

“I’ll be counting down the days.” 

“Daniel’s there with you?” he asked, knowing the answer would be yes. 

“Yeah, May too.”

“Say hello for me, alright?” 

“Of course.” 

“And I’ll see you in a few weeks, okay? Hang in there.”

“I always do,” she promised. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Daisychain.” 

She hung up with a smile at his use of the nickname. It had been a while since he had called her that. 

A soft knock at the door caused her to look up, seeing the door crack open and Dr. Warren poke his head around the corner hesitantly. 

“Good timing, I just finished up.” She tried smiling at him, but felt her stomach twisting back into knots at the sight of the filing folder she knew contained the prognosis for her future. May and Daniel filed in behind him, each taking seats in the room beside her bed, waiting as Warren opened up the folder and took a deep breath to begin. 

“I’m not going to string you along or sugarcoat this. It isn’t good.”

_ Wow, what a great start _ , Daisy thought as her heart dropped into her stomach. 

“From your scans, we were able to piece together a pretty good picture of what happened, as well as what caused it. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, you’ve relapsed again. Long story short, it's metastasized into your central nervous system. That caused you to suffer a grand mal seizure, and at some point either on the way to the floor or when you reached the floor, you hit your head which knocked you out and gave you a mild concussion. Now, I know it’s a lot to take in, but we need to talk about the next course of action for treatment options.” 

Daisy, Daniel, and May had hardly taken a breath since he began talking,and they stared intently at him, waiting for him to continue. 

He sighed. “I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Dr. Simmons this afternoon trying to figure out what else we can do. If you thought AML was hard to get rid of, AML when it spreads into the nervous system is even worse. And at this point with it being your fourth relapse, we’ve pretty much exhausted all our usual plans.” 

He paused, waiting for some reaction, but all three of them seemed to be in shock. Understandably, too. When he said it was bad, this had not at all been what they pictured in their minds. 

“At this stage we would typically turn to some more experimental methods,” he continued. “And there _ are _ several clinical trial drugs available that we could get you on a list for, but I am very hesitant to recommend these to you. Chemo and radiation are one thing, they’ve been being used with high rates of positive results for decades and we knew from simulations and understanding the procedures well that it was unlikely to be dangerous to you, besides the natural risks involved. I, as did Dr. Simmons, felt that it was safe to put you through that even with your inhuman DNA. But with clinical trials, there’s no baseline, no expectations, no precedence. They aren’t developed and tested to go with inhuman DNA, and unfortunately the total number of inhumans who have cancer, that we know of at least, is just one— you. Which means there aren’t any inhuman based clinical trials in progress.” 

“So what does this mean?” Daisy asked, the first one to finally speak up. 

“Well, you have a few options, but now that it has spread into your nervous system, I must warn you that anything we do might only be able to lessen the reach of the cancer cells rather than get rid of them, and even if you do go into remission, after all this time I must say your cancer is quite persistent, and it’s unlikely that another remission will last very long. Really the only options left are to continue with chemo and radiation to try to at least control the spreading, risk an untested clinical trial, or hospice.” 

Daisy felt like she had been punched in the gut. She could feel through the vibrations in the air when Daniel’s heart skipped a beat, and she felt the intense emotions of fear and grief radiating off of May. This was not how this was supposed to go. 

At the end of the day, Daisy decided that she wanted to take a bit of time to process and think over all her options before making the decision as to what they would do next. She was discharged with specific instructions to avoid screens, bright lights, and large noises for a week or so until her concussion was healed, as well as orders to watch out carefully for any warning signs of another seizure. 

May drove them back to their apartment in her car, considering they had no vehicle at the hospital. After staying around for a bit longer to help Daniel cook dinner, she hugged them both goodbye and promised to visit again later on in the week. 

Daisy and Daniel ended up curled around one another in bed shortly after, offering one another the silent comfort and support that they both needed after the difficult day. 

“Daniel?” Daisy whispered in the dark of their room. 

“Yeah sweetheart?” 

“I still want to go camping.” 

“Are you sure that’s a good—”

“I’m not saying we should go hiking and swimming in the creek and trekking through the woods,” she said. “If things are going to suddenly go downhill, I want to have experienced camping at least once in my life. And I just think we need to get away from— from all this. For a few days. Sit by a campfire and roast hot dogs and make s’mores and talk and cuddle under blankets and look at the stars. Just us.” 

“I think that sounds wonderful.” 

With the camping trip still on, his  _ other _ plan was still in motion. 

He kissed her on the forehead and pulled her closer into his chest. They were going to get through this. Just like with everything else. They were unbeatable. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise next chapter won’t be as bad ....


	18. Camping

Telling the team was harder this time around. She may not have been throwing up and so faint she couldn’t leave her bed with this relapse, but on the inside this was the sickest she had ever been, and they all knew it. 

Mack had put her on an indefinite leave of absence, for obvious reasons, but had also taken Daniel off of active duty for a while, knowing Daisy would appreciate having him around. She did try to argue with it at first, knowing that he still had a duty to S.H.I.E.L.D., but Mack insisted that it wouldn’t be a problem if he took some time off and that it would only be for a few weeks, so she conceded. Daniel was extremely grateful for it though, because at this point he knew that he wouldn’t be much help in missions anyway if his mind was on Daisy instead of on the op, and his focus was solely centered on her. 

The fresh relapse had snuck up and kicked them in the ass. Up until her seizure, she had experienced no symptoms, nothing to warn or notify them of the cancerous cells that had further leached themselves into her body. Other than that one seizure, she had felt completely normal, but in the two weeks leading up to their camping trip, she finally started to feel the effects that Dr. Warren had said would catch up to her, and fast. 

Daisy spent almost a week mostly hanging out in bed as the dizziness and the migraines from her concussion faded, but by the time her head was feeling well enough to get up and walk around, a weakness had settled into the rest of her body that made even the trip from their bedroom into the living room tiring. She still did her best to slowly navigate her way around their apartment, and despite Daniel’s reservations about being out in the woods far from a hospital, she refused to cancel their trip, saying the plan was always to sit around anyway. He agreed, under the condition that she keep any physical activity to a bare minimum, and that the moment she started feeling unwell she would tell him immediately. 

He didn’t particularly want to cancel his plans for the weekend either. 

The week of, Daniel traveled around buying and borrowing camping supplies, while Daisy stayed home and worked on packing the clothing for their weekend away. It was early October, but despite the D.C. air still barely holding a chill, Daniel insisted that once they were in the mountains they would need plenty of warm clothes. 

When Friday morning finally came and they loaded up their car and began to head out, Daisy was over the moon. The whole way there she made Daniel tell stories about his camping experiences growing up, learning to make campfires with his Boy Scout troop, and how his dad would take him out fishing in this lake in the woods, and how he and his sister would dig around in the mud until she was deemed  _ too old and mature for such unladylike activities.  _ (To which Daisy responded with a muttered “bullshit.”) 

Three hours later they were pulling into the driveway of a small cabin, Daisy noting that it looked like a life sized version of the Lincoln Log cabins that Alya built. It had a roomy stone porch with a fireplace, and on the inside it held a small dining table, a kitchen, and a bedroom with two Queen sized beds. Daniel brought in their food and luggage, giving Daisy the chance to just stand in the woods and marvel at the sights and sounds around her. She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face as the sound of the wind whistling through the trees, the rushing water of the creek, a small chipmunk scurrying over the ground by her feet. She had been in the woods on missions, but this was a new experience altogether, finding that the woods could be filled with such peace and beauty rather than screams and conflict. 

Once everything was unpacked, they spent the afternoon walking slowly through the woods, gathering small sticks to use as kindling for their campfire, until they got hungry and Daisy got too tired to keep going. With 15 or so minutes left until they reached their cabin, she tried to stop for a moment to rest, but before she could get a word in Daniel handed her his bundle of twigs and scooped her up in his arms bridal style and continued their trek while she shrieked with laughter for him to “put me down right now or I’m going to tell Mack to give you extra paperwork!” By the time they had reached the little log house she had stopped her protests, smiling appreciatively at the feeling of his arm muscles tensing under her. 

That night Daniel taught her how to perfectly and evenly roast a hotdog over the open flames, and groaned when she purposely lit her marshmallow on fire because she didn’t see the point in waiting for it to slowly toast if she could just heat it through all at once. 

Eventually, even with the fire in front of them, it got a little too cold and despite Daisy’s protests for him to stop mothering her, Daniel insisted they go into the cabin and settle into their sleeping bags. Rather than each sleeping in their own bags and staying separated for the night, they unzipped two bags and used them as double layers. Besides, Daniel was like a human radiator. Pressed against his side, she could have no blankets at all and still be warm all night long. 

Daisy slept late the next morning, and by the time she made her way out of the cabin Daniel was waiting on the porch, freshly showered from his morning run and tending to a growing fire. They spent the day playing board games, hanging by the fire, and throwing peanuts and sunflower seeds over the edge of the porch and watching squirrels and chipmunks dart out from their hiding spots in the trees to collect them. It was mundane, and slow, and peaceful, and exactly what they both needed. 

Each of them held something in the back of their minds, waiting for the right moment to bring it up. 

Saturday night they made plans to go to a lookout point and go stargazing later on, but for the moment were sitting together in one chair watching the flames flicker before them, Daisy curled up in Daniel’s lap as he ran a hand up and down along her back. She finally decided that this was the time she needed to bring up the conversation that had been on her mind since the hospital, now that she felt as if they were both in good enough moods to reasonably discuss it. There was always the added bonus that even if he didn’t, he couldn’t get away while she was sitting on him. 

She took a deep breath, and started the speech she had been preparing for weeks. “Daniel.” 

“Hmm?”

“I think we need to start thinking about stopping treatment and letting this run its course.” 

His heart stopped. 

“Daisy—” 

She could tell by the tone of his voice he was going to try to argue her out of this. She should have expected nothing less from him. She was his lifeline as much as he was her’s, but even his strong arms holding her together wasn’t enough to keep away the mutated cancer cells that kept coming back to destroy her body. 

“No, please just listen,” she cut him off before he could disagree. “I can’t keep doing this! The treatment, then the remission, then the relapse with even more spreading, over and over again! I just can’t!” 

“You can, I know you can,” he insisted. “You just have to keep fighting it. Like you have been. You’ve been so strong— you  _ are  _ so strong and I know you can keep fighting this battle.”

“But what if I don’t want to? I’m tired, Daniel. It’s selfish, I know, and I’m sorry, but I’m tired of constantly fighting a war that I know I can’t win.”

Daniel sighed, not wanting to discuss the topic. “Can we please not have this conversation right now?” 

“When then?” she exclaimed, trying to keep her voice down to preserve the peace of the woods around them. “When else are you going to want to have this conversation? 

“Never!” he said sharply, before quickly reeling in his emotions. “I don’t  _ want _ to think about losing you any more than I already do. I’ll have this conversation at some point because I know you want to and I need to respect that, but I really just don’t want to talk about it tonight.” 

“Why not?”

“ _ Because _ .”

“That’s not a reason, Daniel, and you know it—” 

“Because I don’t want to talk about losing you on the same night I ask you to marry me!”

A stunned silence settled over the porch for a moment. 

“Oh,” Daisy finally said, unable to coherently come up with any appropriate response. 

“Yeah,” was all Daniel said back. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“No, I’m sorry. That’s not how I was planning to ask you,” he said with a sigh. Seems like he has a habit of completely butchering proposals. 

“Please don’t,” she said, so quietly he almost missed it, but he could clearly hear the tears in her eyes and the lump forming in her throat. 

“Please don’t what? What do you mean?” 

“Please don’t ask. Because I won’t be able to say no. You don’t deserve that.” 

Now he was confused.  _ Didn’t deserve that?  _

“Daisy, I want this. Why wouldn’t I—” 

“I’m dying, Daniel!” She cut him off with a sob, starting to pull away from him. “I’m dying and then what? You’re going to be left alive and sad and widowed when I’m gone and I won't let you do that!” 

“What happened to not letting this take away from our lives? To living life to the fullest despite the setbacks?” He kept his arms firm around her, not letting her gain enough distance between them to put up her walls. 

“Not this,” she nearly begged, but for the first time ever he didn’t back away from her pleas. 

“Why?” 

“I can’t— I  _ won’t _ do that to you.” She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her voice, before finally admitting, “I’m living on a countdown, Daniel.” 

“You think I don’t know that? That’s exactly why I need to do this! I don’t care how much time we have, I want you to be my wife. I want a wedding, I want your family there. And if you don’t come out the other side of this, I want rings to hold on to after. I don’t care if it’s for three more weeks or three more decades, I need  _ you _ .” 

They were both crying by now, but Daniel carefully eased them both out of the camp chair they had been squeezed into, and they ended up sitting in front of each other on the hard stone of the porch, watching the fat tears roll down each other’s cheeks. Finally letting go of her hands, Daniel reached into his pockets and pulled out a black velvet ring box and flipped it open to reveal a ring with two little stars cut out of purple amethyst crystals and embedded into the top of the silver band. Daisy could feel from the vibrations in the metal that it was made of the same quake-absorbent material as her gauntlets, meaning Fitzsimmons had to have been involved in its production. 

“I was going to do this tonight while we were watching the stars. Had a whole speech planned out and everything, but I guess now that the cat’s out of the bag I’ll just cut to the chase…” 

He took a deep breath and looked straight into her tear filled eyes. 

“Daisy Louise Johnson, will you  _ please _ marry me?” 

She let a desperate sob escape her lips. 

“Yes,” she whispered just loud enough that he knew her answer, burying her face in her hands. “I’m sorry. Yes.” 

Daniel gently pulled her hands away from her face and slid the ring over her left ring finger, kissing her softly with a gentle hand against her chin. He wiped the leftover tears from her cheeks and Daisy did the same to him, and then sank against his chest, silently staring at her ring as the waves of warmth from the campfire wrapped around them. 

“I’m sorry,” she said again. 

“I’m not,” he said certainly. “No matter what happens, you are worth it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo I can’t decide if that was fluffy or angsty so a little bit of both maybe?


	19. Genius Flower Girls

“Absolutely not.” 

“I’m sorry,  _ what _ ?” 

When Daisy and Daniel had returned home from their trip early afternoon on Sunday, Daisy had discovered yet another surprise— her whole family waiting there to congratulate them. 

Daniel had told all of them of his plan to propose that weekend, and so Mack had picked up the Fitzsimmons on the helicarrier on his way over, and Kora was waiting on video chat from just outside the Anyadroxus galaxy, and Coulson put together a celebratory dinner, because it was, as Mack said when Daniel approached him about it,  _ about damn time _ . Everyone was absolutely thrilled, and despite still feeling guilty and apprehensive about taking that step, Daisy found that she had to agree with him. After everything they went through together, and everything that was ahead of them, they deserved this. It was about damn time. 

But now it was later on in the evening, and Daisy had cornered Jemma on the couch and had tried to explain as calmly as possible about her wish to discontinue treatment. Jemma clearly did not take it well, and with her sudden outburst, she drew the attention of everyone in the room, which is exactly what Daisy was hoping to avoid. This was supposed to be a celebration, no need to sound any funeral bells yet. 

“I’m not letting you give up!” Jemma said, angry tears forming at the corners of her eyes. 

The room fell silent and all eyes turned toward the pair. 

“Tremors, what is she talking about?” Mack said apprehensively, gaze flitting between the sisters. 

“I—” Daisy blanked, looking panicked towards Daniel, who looked apologetic, but raised his eyebrows at her to signal that there was no way for her to get out of this one. “I didn’t want to talk about this today,” she muttered, just barely loud enough for everyone to hear her. 

“Alya, sweetie, go take Val to the guest bedroom and close the door. The two of you play in there for a bit, the grown ups need to have a little talk,” May said, putting on a fake smile for her granddaughters, already knowing that they shouldn’t be in the room for the conversation and resulting argument that was about to occur. 

“But—” 

“Listen to your Grandma, Al,” Jemma said with a stern look, at which Alya nodded her head silently. 

“Yes, Mama.” She grabbed Valeria’s little hand in her own and led her younger cousin to the room down the hall. 

Once the playroom door closed, an uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Daisy refused to look anyone in the eye, staring at the hem of her shirt as she toyed with his anxiously. 

“Daisy?” Bobbi finally spoke up, her voice apprehensive. 

“I—” the inhuman took a deep breath, trying to steel herself for what she knew was to come. “I don’t want to continue treatment this time around.” 

Just as she expected, the room fell quiet for a few moments while everyone processed what she had said, until people started to voice their opinions, all very upset at her declaration. Elena, Bobbi, Fitz, Hunter, and Kora (who was still connected through the screen of a laptop perched on a chair) all began talking at once, and for a moment Daisy tensed, ready to bolt, until Daniel spoke up, noticing her anxiety spiking. 

“Everyone calm down. I know you don’t like it, I don’t either, but let her say her piece,” he said, effectively silencing the room. 

Daisy tried to smile appreciatively at him, but it came out as more of a grimace. 

“Considering this is my  _ fourth _ relapse and it’s now spread into my  _ nervous system _ and we’ve practically exhausted our treatment options and to no avail, my doctor told me last time I was in that it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be able to beat this,” Daisy tried to calmly explain, ignoring Hunter’s mutters of  _ ‘what kind of bullshit doctor is that?’ _

Jemma cut in before Daisy could think of what she wanted to say next. “You do know that stopping treatment altogether will give the cancer free reign to spread and overtake the rest of your body. It will kill you. But even if whatever treatment you get won’t be effective enough to completely rid you of cancer, it can control it, manage it, you can keep living.” 

“Jem,” Daisy said softly. “You know what those drugs do to me. How violently ill and weak and spaced out they make me. And to put myself through all that just to extend my life for what would be a few miserable weeks or months, that’s not living. You all know that I don’t want to leave you behind, but there isn’t much more we can do, and I’ve made peace with it.” 

“But Tremors—” 

“Coulson, please, back me up,” Daisy cut Mack off, practically begging. “You know! You know what it’s like to have your life continuously stretched out until you can’t take it anymore.” 

“You’re right,” Coulson admitted, speaking up for the first time since the conversation started. “I do know.” 

“So you’re with me on this?” 

“Do I need to remind you that you didn’t listen to me either when I asked the same thing of you?” 

“Yes, but this isn’t GH325, or the Centipede serum, or the odium, or LMDs, or anything like that. You— you have a healthy, working body and all your memories, and so many people here who love you!” 

“Yeah, and so do you! Fitzsimmons, Mack, Elena, May, Daniel!  _ Me _ ! And now I have to sit here, not aging, until all of you die around me. I at least thought that I would get extra time with you, time we didn’t think we would have when I left for Tahiti, but here you are now, asking me to support your decision to allow your life to come to an early end, when you couldn’t even respect my decision to let mine  _ stay  _ over!” 

“But—“ Daisy tried to cut in, but Coulson continued talking over her. 

“Yes I know what you’re going through but you also know what I’m going through. I can’t just let you accept death and  _ welcome  _ it. You couldn’t do the same for me!” 

“I’m sorry I did that to you. I wasn’t thinking about what you wanted, I acted on impulse and I’m sorry.” She was crying by now, so overwhelmed and desperate and  _ tired _ . Just so tired. “But please. Don’t make me keep going through the same thing. Please let me go.” 

The whole room was quiet, everyone staring sadly either at Daisy or at the floor, not wanting to look at her. 

“We’re here for you,” Jemma relented, wiping tears from her eyes with one hand reaching over and grabbing hold of Daisy’s hand with her other. “Whatever you choice you go with is up to you to make, and I’m sorry we tried to take that away from you. We’ll be by your side the whole way.” 

“I really am sorry,” Daisy said again. 

“Don’t be,” Daniel reassured her. “You’ve fought so hard and for so long and we are all so proud of you. Any amount of time we have left is time well spent.” 

“That’s what family is for,” May finally spoke up. She looked a bit overwhelmed, clearly feeling the raging emotions of everyone around her, but she put on a small smile for Daisy’s sake. She could feel the exhaustion and desperation coming off of the girl in waves, and while she couldn’t imagine losing her, she could also feel how much this meant to Daisy, and she understood that she needed to respect that. 

Daisy smiled gratefully around the room. She never thought that she would have this.  _ A family _ . And now here she is, so very different from that lonely little girl living in her van, but so much better off, no matter what her circumstances. 

“Speaking of family,” she changed the subject rapidly. “There were some more exciting things that we had wanted to talk about tonight.” 

She nodded at Daniel, who jumped up and retrieved three small gift bags from where they had been hidden away in their bedroom. 

“Alya! Val!” Daisy called out, her voice reaching to the small guest room down the hall where the girls were playing. “You guys can come on out!” 

The blonde girl appeared timidly around the corner, leading her younger cousin by the hand, but seemed to brighten up when she saw the gift bags Daniel was holding out to them. The third gift bag was handed to Fitz, who was holding Brodie. Inside was a onesie in the infant’s size that read “ _ Best Ring Bearer” _ , which brought a huge smile to Fitz’s face, and to Jemma’s as well when he held it up for the rest of the room to see. Val and Alya each unpacked their bags to find a small box, which upon opening revealed a necklace lined with little flower pendants. 

“Flower necklaces for our flower girls,” Daisy said with a smile to her nieces. 

Valeria was still too young to understand the significance of the necklace, but Alya’s face lit up. 

“We get to be your flower girls?” she shrieked, jumping up and down in excitement. 

“Of course, silly!” Daisy said, pulling her into her lap for a hug. “Who else would we pick? Uncle Mack?” 

Alya giggled, and Val climbed into Daisy’s lap too, not quite sure what the commotion was about, but not wanting to miss out on cuddles from Tía Daisy. 

“Speaking of Uncle Mack,” Daniel said with a grin. “I’d love if you, Fitz, and Hunter would be my groomsmen.” 

“We’d be honored,” Mack said, and the huge smile on his face backed up the statement. 

“Which of course means Bobbi, Kora, and YoYo are my bridesmaids. It’s not a request, I’ll kick your asses if you refuse,” Daisy announced, and everyone laughed. 

“What about me?” Jemma asked. 

“Jem,” Daisy deadpanned. “Did you really think you weren’t going to be my maid of honor? I thought that was implied.” 

Caught between a laugh and a happy sob, Jemma threw herself at her sister, wrapping her in a crushing hug, which ended up encompassing her daughter and niece, who were still in Daisy’s lap. 

When Jemma finally pulled away, wiping tears from her eyes, Daisy’s face grew a little more serious, her eyes directed toward May and Coulson. 

“I was wondering if you guys would be willing to walk me down the aisle. I know you aren’t technically my parents, but you filled that role in my life a long time ago, and it would mean a lot to me if it was you guys who did that.” 

“Of course, Daisychain,” Coulson said, beaming. “I hope you know that we’ve considered you to be our daughter for a very long time, and we couldn’t have asked for a more amazing one.” 

“Besides,” May added with a mischievous grin. “If we aren’t your parents, why did Daniel come to us asking for our blessing before he proposed?” 

“He what!?” 

“I know it’s old fashioned and a kind of sexist tradition, but it was one I wanted to do,” Daniel explained, slightly embarrassed. “I hope you don’t mind terribly. I would have done it whether they gave their approval or not.” 

Daisy laughed. “Somehow that is simultaneously one of the square-est and least square things I’ve ever heard you say. But I think it’s sweet.” 

“I do too,” Coulson smiled. 

“Thanks Mom and Dad,” Daisy said, smiling as she tried out the words, finding herself loving the sound of it on her tongue. 

Eventually, their celebrations and wedding planning came to a close, Alya and Valeria both asleep on the couch and out long past their bedtimes. Everyone helped clean up and started to make their way back to their homes, and the Fitzsimmons family went back to HQ, where they were staying in a guest suite for the night until they would be transported back to Scotland the next day. 

As Jemma tucked Alya into bed late that night, she noticed a few quiet tears spilling over her daughter’s eyes as she fidgeted with the necklace she had received earlier that day. 

“What’s wrong, sweet girl?” she asked, sitting on the side of the bed and brushing the tears from her face with a gentle hand. 

“Is Aunt Daisy going to die?” 

Jemma suddenly felt like she had been punched in the stomach. She looked up and made a panicked moment of eye contact with Fitz, who had just laid a sleeping Brodie in the crib. 

“Monkey, were you listening to the grown ups talk even after we told you to leave the room?” he asked. 

“I tried not to, I promise,” she said sincerely, sitting up. “But everyone seemed very upset and they were being very loud. I was trying very hard not to hear but I heard— I heard you say that—” fresh tears rolled down her cheeks as she struggled against the words, not wanting to say them aloud for fear that it would make them come true. 

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry you had to hear that.” Jemma wrapped her daughter’s softly shaking form in a tight embrace and stroked her hair. “I’m going to tell you the truth, okay?” 

The little girl nodded. 

“Aunt Daisy is very very sick. And the doctors don’t know how to help her anymore.” She took a shaky breath, not warning to say the words either, but trying to hold her composure for her daughter’s sake. “Aunt Daisy isn’t going anywhere yet, but without a miracle, she will be gone at some point in future.” 

Alya nodded through her tears. “Is it because Aunt Daisy’s superhero cells are too strong for the normal people medicine?” 

Jemma froze. 

“Oh my god, Fitz.” 

He made eye contact with her, realizing the same thing as she did. 

“Cancer is just mutated human cells that continue to reproduce so—”

“It would stand to reason that with her inhuman biology—”

“The reason her cancer cells aren’t staying gone are because they had an added component that normal humans wouldn’t have—” 

“If we can synthesize something from another inhuman’s DNA—” 

“Then we might have something that’ll stick.” 

“If we—”

They went back and forth for a few more minutes, Alya looking intrigued at the scientific banter between them. 

“Oh, bloody hell, Alya you are an absolute genius!” Fitz exclaimed, kissing his daughter on the forehead. 

“Daddy, you said a bad word.” 

He just laughed, a more lighthearted feeling settling in his chest. He immediately dialed Daisy’s cell, and she picked up after a few rings, sounding groggy as if she had just been woken up. 

“What the hell, Fitz, it’s late,” she grumbled, and he heard Danield’s tired voice mutter something in the background, but he couldn’t care less what time it was. 

“We might have something.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things might be looking up.... 👀


	20. Hold On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaa so I hate this chapter but I was really unmotivated this week and just needed some kind of filler to set up the next chapter 😭

Fitzsimmons never ended up going back to Scotland after the engagement party. 

Once the idea was in their head that they may have a true way to save their sister and best friend, they dropped everything. They quit their jobs in Scotland and became full time employees of S.H.I.E.L.D. once again, moved to a S.H.I.E.L.D.-funded home just down the street from the Rodriguez-Mackenzie home, and focused all their efforts on figuring out their cure. 

They were working as fast as they could, but it was a complicated process. It wasn’t synthesizing antibodies like it had been for the Chitauri virus, or even a shut down and restart like when May was infected by the Darkhold illness. Cancer was cancer, there were no antibodies, no manual restart, and no shortcuts. They had a general concept for this new treatment, but actually getting a working formula that they could turn into a drug would take time. 

And it seemed like they were running out of that. 

For a while Daisy seemed steady. Sick— constant headaches, dizziness, fatigue, muscle weakness, and nausea were all accounted for— but steady. Mack allowed Daniel to switch to part time so that he could help Daisy on her bad days, and on her good days he worked on mission plans and tactical operations, and she hacked satellite feeds and designed new S.H.I.E.L.D. cybersecurity networks. They spent time together in the evenings, had dinners with their family on the weekends, and worked on wedding plans. It wasn’t  _ nice _ , per se, but it was comfortable. She was getting sicker and everyone knew it, but it was manageable. 

And then four months after finding out about her relapse, everything started to go downhill. 

Daniel was just finishing up the last batch of pancakes one Saturday morning when she came stumbling out of the bedroom, panic in her eyes and tears streaming down her face. 

“Dais, are you okay?” he asked, running over to steady her as her legs trembled beneath her. 

“I don’t— I don’t know—” She looked around the room frantically, almost as if she was confused at where she was. 

“Okay, come on. Let’s sit down,” he said, guiding her to the couch, thinking that he recognized her behavior as that of one of her panic attacks. Neither of them were strangers to episodes like these, and they had long ago figured out the routines that helped one another through them. She sat rigidly on the edge of the cushion, as if she wanted to be ready to jump up at any moment. “Talk to me, okay?”

“I—” she clutched his hand like a vice, and he felt her powers buzzing under her skin, trying to escape. 

“Just breathe with me, okay?” He tried prompting her, “take it easy and start with the breathing.” 

But something about it was different, and he realized that this was not in fact a panic attack just in time to lay her down on her back on the couch as she lost consciousness and her body seized uncontrollably. Checking his watch, trying to focus on Daisy and not the overwhelming feeling of terror and pain tried to cloud his brain, he timed the convulsion, the of the longest 1 minute and 23 seconds of his life, until she flopped limply, wheezing slightly. Daniel followed every step the doctors had given him to a T, rolling just to her side so she wouldn’t choke on her own saliva, and checking her airway to be sure it was clear. He brushed her hair away from her face, which had nearly grown out to her shoulders by now, and gazed at her through the tears brimming in the edges of his eyes. 

Daisy’s eyes screwed shut as a hoarse cough racked her body, and she squinted through confused eyes at Daniel’s concerned face staring over at her. 

“What— what happened?” she groaned, trying and failing to sit up. 

“You had another seizure,” he said softly, stroking her hair and making sure she stayed laying down. The doctors had told him that it wasn’t uncommon for people to be confused and not know what was happening after a seizure. It’s why she couldn’t explain what happened to her the first time it had occurred. 

“Oh,” was all she said, her eyelids falling back down, exhausted. 

“I’m going to call Fitzsimmons,” he said after a few moments. 

“No,” Daisy mumbled, her eyes still closed. “Warren said not to bring me in unless two happen in a row.” 

“Yeah, but that was him, and he’s the one who’s already given up on you,” Daniel said bitterly. 

“No one gave up, I’m the one who chose—” 

“Yeah, yeah I know.” He reached for his phone anyway. “I’m still calling Jemma. She knows ways to kill people in crazy scientific ways I could never even imagine, and I do not want to fall prey to what she might do to me if I let this go without at least telling her.” 

As the phone rang, he stood up and went to get her a glass of water. 

“She wouldn’t hurt you,” Daisy called out. “She’s almost as scared of what I can do as you are of what she can do.” 

Just as she said that, the room rumbled and a picture frame fell off the wall and shattered. Daniel jumped slightly. 

“What, like shake the pictures off her walls?” He tried to joke, as he set down the glass to go pick up the broken glass, balancing the phone between his ear and his shoulder, starting to explain what happened to Jemma. 

She reiterated exactly what Dr. Warren had— to be careful, take it easy, watch out for signs of another seizure. Daisy took the phone from her and they spoke for a while, and even through her exhaustion Daisy could tell the way that her friend was stressed, overwhelmed, and fearful, and that her mad scramble to figure out how to literally  _ cure cancer _ was the cause. 

“I don’t want you feeling bad if you can’t finish it in time,” Daisy said softly. As much hope as this possible cure had given her, she had long ago come to terms with death. That level of acceptance had only been put on pause. 

“You know I’m not going to accept that.”

“I’m just saying. I can tell you are running yourself ragged. I’m glad you are doing this, but I need you to take care of yourself too.” 

“On the day you announced you were stopping treatment, I had to explain to my daughter that her aunt, her  _ hero _ , would be losing this fight,” Jemma said fiercely. “I made a promise to myself that I would let that happen. Not to her. Not to  _ you _ .” 

“Jemma—“ 

“ _ I can’t lose you _ .”

“I know. I’m sorry.” 

Jemma drew in a breath. “I’m sorry too. I know you’re just looking out for me.” 

“And I know you’re looking out for me.”

“And I always will be.” 

No answer came over the phone, and Jemma waited for a moment, expecting Daisy to say something in response, but when no answer came she called her friend’s name to get her attention. 

“Daisy.  _ Daisy _ .” 

No response came, but a loud bang echoed over the line as the phone hit the ground. 

“Daisy?!”

All Jemma could hear through the phone was Daniel’s muffled voice, shouting something she couldn’t understand from wherever the phone had fallen. 

She grabbed her coat and had already started making her way out of the lab, yelling to Fitz across the room that something was happening at Daisy and Daniel’s place and that she had to go over there and check on them. He had just enough time to look up from his hologram simulation to see the back of her head running out the door and pause his work to go running after her. 

“If something is wrong I need to come too,” he insisted, and Jemma only nodded in acceptance, her phone still pressed against her ear trying to figure out what was going on. 

“Jemma, you still there?” Daniel finally said through the line, just as Fitzsimmons were reaching the parking garage. 

“Finally! Daniel, what happened?” 

“Daisy just had another seizure,”Daniel said, sounding more panicked than before. “I timed it at 3 minutes 46 seconds, but I didn’t even get over here and start timing for at least 10 or 15 seconds after I heard her drop the phone.” 

“Wow, okay that’s a pretty long one,” Jemma mumbled, mostly to herself. 

“Dr. Warren said that if she were to have two in a row that—”

“That you should bring her in, I know. What is her current condition?” 

“She’s kind of in a restless unconsciousness,” Daniel said, stroking Daisy's hair with his free hand. “Heart rate is really fast.” 

“Okay, call an ambulance. They’ll be able to get her in and treated quicker than if you drove her in yourself. Fitz and I were already on our way to your apartment, but we’ll just meet you at the hospital instead.” 

By the time Fitzsimmons had gotten through the traffic and into the E.R., Daniel was sitting anxiously next to Daisy’s bed, where she was awake, but hooked up to so many monitors that you could barely see her. Her cheeks were flushed and she shivered under the thin hospital blanket, despite the light sheen of sweat shining on her skin. 

“They already ran some scans,” Daniel told them, as Jemma immediately went to look at Daisy’s chart, and Fitz took a seat beside Daniel and put a supportive hand on the man’s hunched shoulder. “She didn’t rupture anything, but she’s running a very high fever. They think that may have caused the seizures, so they’re giving her antibiotics and keeping her on observation until it breaks. Once her temperature is back down, they’ll tell us if they think it’s smart to allow her to go home again or if they think that she should stay here in the hospital, but they aren’t sounding optimistic. If you’re going to get this treatment done, it has to be soon.” 

“Jem,” Daisy moaned from the bed, her voice sounding hoarse. 

“Yea, Dais, I’m here,” Jemma put the clipboard down and walked to the bed, bending down and putting a cool hand on Daisy’s hot cheek. 

“At home, there’s a little purple notebook at the bottom of my underwear drawer. I need you to get it.” Even those few words left Daisy winded. 

“I’ll bring it by tomorrow, yeah?” 

“No no, not for me. The last page has a short list of people and how you can contact them.” 

“Daisy,” Fitz muttered, realizing what this was. 

“Please. It’s only a few people, everyone else who I would need to see is still in close contact. I need to see them. Just in case I don’t get another chance.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, processing her request to say goodbye to whatever few people she had decided were meaningful enough to her to warrant this. 

“Jemma will stop by your apartment tonight, and I’ll start tracking down the people tomorrow morning,” Fitz promised. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. 

“Of course,” Fitz said, trying and failing to hide the tears that had sprung into his eyes. “You just keep holding on, yeah? You’ll be getting some visitors soon, Kora will be home in just a few weeks, and you have a wedding to attend. And we’re going to keep working to make sure you get all that.” 

Daisy nodded only, closing her eyes. Her breathing evened out as she fell asleep, and Daniel finally let his guard down now that she didn’t have to watch his worry. 

“We’re close, mate,” Fitz said. 

“She just needs to hold on a little longer,” Daniel nodded, knowing that they were doing everything they could. 

“She will,” Jemma said confidently. “She’s a fighter. Always has been.” 


	21. Visitors pt1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> firstly, sorry this is late, school has been super busy. 
> 
> secondly, this is a lot shorter than most of my chapters because I decided to cut this one short and continue next week, just so I would have something to post. I'm going camping this weekend, so I wanted something up before I left.

Jemma knew that Daisy didn’t journal. 

Andrew had tried to get her into it back when she first got her powers, to use it as a positive coping tool, but much like May she preferred to work out her issues by sparring or hitting the bag. 

_ “If I’m going to talk to someone without getting a response, I might as well talk to May,”  _ Daisy had joked outwardly, but she had told Jemma one night when they had both gotten drunk, sometime between fighting her mom and the A.T.C.U. debacle, that the real reason was because she had a foster father find and read her diary when she was 16 years old, which included details of that particular foster family’s biological son doing quite off color things to her after the lights were out, and after finding that, the parents made her life hell to scare her into silence about the events. That was the last foster home she ever stayed in— she ran away and started living on the streets before they had the chance to send her back to St. Agnes. 

Which is why she was a little surprised to open her friend’s drawer to find three separate journals, each in a different color. 

Daniel seemed the type to journal though, and with most of Daisy’s old coping mechanisms off the table, maybe it wasn’t too shocking at all. 

Jemma fished out the purple one and flipped to the last page, careful not to read anything at the beginning for the privacy of her friend, and found a list of names, with notes and instructions after each person in Daisy’s unmistakable handwriting.

Jemma sighed, closing the notebook gently and putting it in her bag to take to the base so they could start contacting people on the list. 

About a week into Daisy’s hospital stay, the antibiotics had gotten her fever down, but the doctors weren’t confident enough in her physical stability to allow her to go home. Daisy was annoyed, frustrated, and upset by being confined to the four white walls of the hospital again. If she was down to her last days, she wanted to go in the comfort of her own home, with her family, but she never voiced that wish because she knew it was for the reassurance of that same family that she stayed in the hospital. That family was still holding out hope that Fitzsimmons could pull off their scientific miracle in time, and so Daisy agreed to stay in the hospital, where the doctors could buy her time if it came down to it. That didn’t mean she had to be happy about it. 

Somewhere between fever dreams and IV lines and Daniel’s unwavering presence at her bedside, Daisy had forgotten about her request for Jemma to go through her list, until Mike Peterson walked through her hospital door, Ace close behind with a vase of flowers. 

Daisy sat up as quickly as she was able without jostling the IV sticking out of the back of her hand and the oxygen tube they insisted on keeping in her nose. 

“Oh my god, hi!” 

“Hey kid,” Mike said, trying to mask his surprise at seeing Daisy in the state she was in. She noticed his cover up though, used to reading the faces of suspects during interrogations. 

“You don’t have to pretend not to be surprised,” she said, trying to clear the awkward air as Ace shyly handed the vase of flowers over to Daniel, who set them on the table by her bed. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just been awhile, and this is definitely  _ not _ how I envisioned our paths crossing again,” Mike admitted. 

“Well, I’m just glad we’re getting the chance at all,” Daisy said, the smallest hint of sadness in her voice. “But anyway! I don’t think you guys have met!” she said, changing the subject and gesturing towards Daniel. 

“Daniel Sousa,” he introduced himself, standing up to shake both Mike’s and Ace’s hands. 

“Ace, May told me that you started at the academy last year,” Daisy said. “How is it?”

“Great!” The young man said, his smile exactly the same as it had been all those years ago when she had first met him as a kid. “I’ve dreamed of joining S.H.I.E.L.D. since I was a kid.”

“Wanted to be a hero just like your dad, eh?” Daisy smiled, but suddenly looked confused when Ace blushed lightly and Mike laughed under his breath. “What? Did I say something wrong?” 

“I was always his teammate, not his hero,” Mike said. “ _ You _ were his hero growing up.” 

Daisy’s face blanked for a moment, not sure what to say, and Ace looked so uncomfortable. Daisy knew that look— Coulson had played the role of embarrassing dad enough for her to recognize it. 

“Well maybe you’ll be  _ my _ hero now,” she finally said, and Ace grinned. 

They stayed for a while longer sharing updates on their lives and sharing old stories, before they wished each other a solemn farewell when the nurse on duty ushered them out as visitor hours ended. 

Her visits continued when that weekend, a knock on her door revealed Joey Gutierrez with a man she recognized from his social media as Dane— his boyfriend. 

The visit was nice, but Daisy could tell the whole time that there was something Joey wanted to say, but was holding back. Dane must have noticed it too, because after the conversation had slowed, he stood up, putting a hand on Joey’s shoulder as he did. 

“I’m going to wait out in the car. You come out whenever you’re ready,” he said. 

“Daniel, why don’t you walk him out?” Daisy suggested, giving her boyfriend a pointed look to signal that it wasn’t really a request. 

He nodded, placing a quick kiss on her forehead, before following the other man out of the room. 

“Joey’s been beating himself up since Jemma called him the other week,” Dane told Daniel when they were out of earshot from the room. “Elena called him ages ago, when she was first diagnosed I guess, to tell him, and he kept meaning to visit but things kept coming up. And then Jemma called us last week, and said there was a chance that this could be goodbye. And now he keeps talking about how he should have made time, should have canceled something, and how he wasted every opportunity that he could have seen her until it was too late.” 

“She won’t blame him for that at all,” Daniel said certainly. 

“That’s what I thought too. I don’t know her, but from the stories Joey has told me, she doesn’t seem like the time to get upset about that. I’m hoping that talking to her alone will settle his mind a bit, stop him dwelling on the past that can’t be changed.” 

“I think she got that too,” Daniel agreed. “I mean, she kicked me out too, so she must be able to tell that what he needed to say was between the two of them.” 

Back in Daisy’s room, Daisy had gestured for Joey to sit in the chair closest to her, where Daniel had been sitting earlier. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you now?” She asked. 

“I’m sorry I never visited sooner,” he finally said after a few moments of silence, staring at his hands and not looking her in the eyes. 

_ So that’s what this is about _ , she realized. 

“Joey, it’s okay. I get it.”

“No, it’s not okay,” he insisted, looking up at her. “Elena told me when you got sick, and I kept meaning to come, but every time something else came up I would tell myself that we had time. I was foolish and naive to risk wasting it and missing out and I’m sorry.” 

“Joe, I don’t blame you for that. You moved on from S.H.I.E.L.D. years before I was even diagnosed, and there was a  _ reason _ you moved on. I didn’t expect you to come running back. You have your own life now. A pretty great one, if the thirty minutes I experienced of Dane is any indication. I’m happy for you.” 

“You’re still my friend, and I owed it to you to at least visit.” 

“And we’ll always be friends,” Daisy said firmly. “No matter what happens. And you’re here now. That counts for something.” 

They hugged, and he started to walk to the door before looking back. 

“You seem to have your own life pretty figured out too. Even being sick you look happier than I ever saw you back when I was at S.H.I.E.L.D.” 

“I am happy,” Daisy said with a grin. 

“I’m glad.” 

“I’ll see you soon, then,” Daisy said, trying to keep up the smile, but the sadness in her voice took over. They both knew it most likely wasn’t true. 

“Of course. Goodbye, Daisy.” 

“Bye, Joey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TO BE CONTINUED..... 
> 
> who else do you think is coming to visit? (Maddie you're not allowed to say hehe)


	22. Visitors pt 2

When Daisy said the list was short, it wasn’t so much that the list had very few people, it was more so that the list of people she wanted to see again was short. There were a lot of people on the list who she didn’t think it would be realistic or totally necessary to see, but she asked that whoever was reaching out to people would just check up on them to make sure that they were doing okay and that there wasn’t anything more that she could do for them. 

Looking into the lives of the people on Daisy’s list, Fitz and Jemma couldn’t help but be an absolute shock and awe. They knew that Daisy had helped a lot of people in her time at S.H.I.E.L.D.— the number of times she had saved the whole world, would have given her credit enough, but they had no idea how much she had done for people behind the scenes, in the aftermath of the battles that ravaged the planet. 

They had long been aware of Daisy’s aid to Polly and Robin, so it was no surprise to find their names on the list. 

They were, however, surprised to find Nick Fury’s name on the list, and even more surprised to find that when they went looking for any information about his status, there was absolutely nothing to be found after his “death” in 2014, even though both of them knew that there had been instances of his resurfacing in the public eye since then. That’s when they realized. Daisy had been helping him keep up the charade of his death by eliminating any records of him past 2014 from the internet. 

Amanda Campbell and Gabe Reyes had both graduated from college debt-free thanks to Daisy’s monthly anonymous donations. Amanda had just gotten a job as a first grade teacher in Cincinnati, where she and Lincoln grew up, and Gabe quickly rose to head of the Research and Development Lab where he was working while at the same time working on getting his first Ph.D. 

After having to fight and put a stop to General Talbot when the gravitonium took over his sense of self and reasoning, Daisy had started keeping track of his wife Carla and their son George. Any time they found themselves looking for something— a new place to live, a job for Carla, a car for George— something would mysteriously fall right into their laps— an add for a rent controlled house in a safe neighborhood outside of Albany, a job offer looking for someone with Carla’s exact qualifications, a listing for an almost new car with the latest and greatest safety technology  _ and _ self-parking. 

The list went on and on: the Koenigs, Trip’s mom, Cal and his clinic (anonymously, of course), even Ward’s brother Thomas once or twice. 

They were amazed, but not at all surprised, at everything that their best friend had done for those around her. That’s just who she had always been. 

Jemma worked on drug simulations while Fitz went through her list, making sure everyone who was named had everything they needed. They did, of course, Daisy had long been making sure of it. 

There was just one person left from the list who he still needed to find, but he was turning out to be a bit more difficult to track down, and Fitz was getting worried. 

Things at the hospital weren’t looking good. Daisy spent most of her time awake sick, unable to keep down anything she tried to eat or drink, and after two weeks of this she straight up refused to keep trying, at least until she deemed that the nausea that made it hard to keep her eyes open had calmed down. 

The hospital staff, understably, didn’t agree to her preposition, and it was only when they threatened to put a feeding tube down her nose that she grudgingly agreed to choke down at least a few bites of each meal, even if it was coming right back up within a few hours. The inability to retain nutrients had her weak, her bones too prominent through her hospital gown, and they ended up needing to put her on a nutrient drip through her IV. The constant pain that had settled throughout her body made it even worse, and the pain meds they were pumping her full of to “keep her comfortable” did nothing but dull the pain to a throbbing ache. 

As time stretched on and she felt worse and worse, Daisy became worried that she wouldn’t get the chance to see the last person on her list. There was always a possibility that he would be untraceable, off somewhere no living being could go, but she had hoped by some miracle they would be able to track him down. 

She had almost given up that hope when her nurse came into her room. It wasn’t time for her drip to be refilled and she wasn’t due for another dose of pain medication for at least another two hours, so Daisy was a little confused as to what the nurse was doing in there. Daniel seemed confused as well, as he checked his watch to calculate how long ago her last med refill had been. 

“Are you feeling okay today?” the nurse asked. 

“You did my chart this morning, you know I’m not,” Daisy groaned. 

“But are you feeling any better  _ right now _ ?” the nurse said again.

“I mean I guess now that they increased my pain meds and they are at their peak it’s bearable. What’s going on?” Daisy said, getting more and more confused. 

“You have a visitor, but I wanted to make sure that you were up for a visit. If this had been yesterday I wouldn’t have let him in at all,” the nurse said. 

She had a point there. By the end of the day her doctors had approved for her dosage of pain medication to be raised, after she had spent most of her time awake crying from the pressure coming down on every cell of her body. 

Daisy sighed with relief. If it was someone who the nurse didn’t know by name then it wasn’t any of her usual visitors— Bobbi, Coulson, May, Fitzsimmons, and the rest of her family— and that could mean it was only one other person. 

“Send him in, please,”she practically begged. It had been far too long since they had seen one another, and she wanted the chance before it was too late. 

The nurse disappeared for a moment, and Daisy reached out and grabbed Daniel’s hand in relief. He smiled at her, knowing how much this meant to her and relieved that it was finally happening. 

“Damn, chica, you look almost worse than when we met,” was the first thing he said, walking into the room. 

Daisy found her face breaking into a smile at the sight of Robbie standing in the doorway. 

“Almost?” she asked, jokingly. 

“Nah, you definitely look worse right now. And that’s a high bar, congrats on beating that,” he said, coming into the room and leaning over the bed to give her a gentle hug and she wrapped her IV free arm around his back in return. For all his joking, Daisy could see the deep pain in his eyes. 

“It really is good to see you again,” she whispered, as they broke apart. 

“You too, chica. You too.” 

“This is my fiance Daniel, by the way,” she introduced the two men. 

“Nice to finally meet you Robbie,” Daniel said as they shook hands. “Daisy’s told me about you, I’m glad you were able to make it out here. D.C. is pretty far from L.A.” 

“I actually wasn’t quite that far off. I was in Philadelphia chasing some of the last few Watchdog leaders when Gabe called me,” Robbie explained. “Apparently Fitz had been trying to track me down for a few weeks before finally turning to Gabe to see if he had any contact with me. He should have gone right to Gabe, I guess.” 

“How is Gabe, by the way?” Daisy asked. 

“He’s doing great, but you know that.”

Daisy feigned confusion, but Robbie saw right through it. 

“Please, you think we couldn’t figure out that the money was coming from you? Anonymous my ass,” Robbie said. “Thank you, though.”

“I owe both of you, big time,” Daisy said, shrugging. “I’m glad I could repay a little bit of that.” 

“You didn’t owe us a damn thing,” Robbie protested. 

“I would have gotten myself killed a long time ago if it weren’t for you. I wouldn’t have seen my best friends get married, or met my nieces and nephews, or met the love of my life. Whether I owe you for that or not, thank you. You helped give me almost a full decade of life I wouldn’t have had otherwise.” 

A long stretch of silence spread across the room, as they all considered her words. 

“Daniel, could you give Robbie and I a few minutes?” Daisy said after a bit. 

“Of course,” he kissed her forehead and stood up. “I should go down to the dining hall and get something to eat anyway.”

Once they were alone, Robbie smiled at her knowingly. 

“So, fiance?”

“Yeah, we met in 1955, if you can believe that,” she told him. 

“I am possessed by a demon that lights my skull on fire, and you think I’d be fazed by a little time travel?  _ Please _ .” 

She laughed lightly. 

“It’s good to finally see you happy,” he said. 

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Makes me disappointed in my old self, actively chasing death way back then. I thought I was so ready to die, but now that I’m practically knocking on the door myself, I realize how not ready I am to go.” 

“There’s really nothing else they can do?”

“Fitzsimmons are trying to find a cure because the regular treatments weren’t strong enough for my inhuman cancer cells, but we’re running out of time, and without that all the doctors can do is keep me comfortable until, you know.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said, resting his hand gently on hers. 

“I’ve died before, but they were able to bring me back. I guess I’m just afraid of what it’s going to be like when it’s permanent,” she admitted. “You know what that’s like, right?”

“A little. Where I go with the Rider though, you won’t be anywhere near that. Hell is relative, yes, but so is Heaven. After everything you’ve done for the world, I think you more than deserve a peaceful afterlife.” 

“Thank you,” she said. “I guess if anything that’s some bit of reassurance. Maybe I’ll be with Coulson there. The original him.” 

“Maybe,” he smiled sadly, glad he could bring her some small bit of peace. 

Their goodbye was hard. Each time they’d said farewell in the past it left it had been more of a  _ see you around _ , but this time they knew it really was goodbye. After everything they had gone through together, neither of them really wanted to let that go, but they had to, and with one last wave he left her room and did his best not to look back.

A few days later Daisy was sleeping around mid afternoon when a commotion in the hallway outside woke her up. She had made Daniel go home earlier that morning to shower, sleep for a few hours in their own bed, and get something to eat that wasn’t nasty hospital food, so she was alone in the room, until a nurse came in, looking irritated. 

“There’s a girl out here who keeps insisting that she needs to see you. Actually, what she’s saying is that she’s  _ already _ seen you, but that doesn’t make much sense. Neither does any of the other nonsense she keeps going on about,” the nurse said, looking confused. “There’s an older woman with her, her mother maybe. Were you expecting them?” 

Daisy thought for a moment, confused. She knew who that sounded like, but why would— 

Her thought was interrupted when the girl stepped around the nurse blocking the doorway and into the room. 

“Robin?” Daisy tried sitting up,

“I told you to keep resting, don’t get up yet,” the young inhuman said, exasperated. “You need to conserve your energy.”

“You did, didn’t you?” Daisy said, suddenly remembering the last time she had seen Robin, nearly six years ago. She had told her something along those lines, but Daisy had ignored her, figuring by the time the instruction would be useful it would have been long forgotten. 

Polly came into the room behind her, looking about as frazzled as the nurse. 

“Daisy, I am so sorry,” Robin’s mother apologized quickly. 

“No, no, it’s okay. It’s just a surprise.”

Robin sat right down in the chair next to the bed, and Daisy nodded to the poor nurse that everything was okay and she could leave. 

“That’s the most comfortable I’ve seen her in weeks,” Polly said, gesturing toward Robin, who was smiling peacefully, half lost in thought as usual. 

“What are you guys doing here?” Daisy asked, as Polly sat in the seat next to Robin. 

“She’s been saying for weeks that she needed to see you and I haven’t been able to tell if she was talking about six years in the past or six years in the future, and then Fitz called us to check in and I was able to pry some details out of him. A lot of the stuff Robin had been saying for the past few months started to make sense though, and that’s when I realized she was actually talking about something closer to the present for once.” 

“Has she said anything else?” Daisy asked, looking over at the girl.

“Did you see?” Robin piped up in response. 

“Oh!” Polly quickly reached into her purse to pull out a folder, where Daisy knew she kept all of Robin’s drawings. “She said this was for you.” 

Daisy accepted the paper and admired the girl’s work. She had come a long way from the crayon scribbles that helped determine their fate more than once. The picture clearly showed Daisy, wearing a simple white dress, hand in hand with Coulson, in a suit that reminded her so much of how he looked when they first met. 

“I’ve already seen it, remember?” Robin said, pointing to the drawing. “It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be beautiful.” 

“Robin, what is this?” Daisy asked, fear settling in her stomach, stronger than the feeling of hunger that had been stuck there for weeks. 

Robin just shook her head, and Daisy was left wondering once again if she even knew when she was giving coherent answers or not. 

“He’ll be there,” was all she said, pointing at the Coulson in her drawing. “Don’t worry.” 

She was suddenly reminded of her conversation with Robbie earlier that week, about relative Heaven and seeing Coulson again, and her heart plummeted. 

This was her, in whatever relative afterlife she would end up in. 

Fitzsimmons don’t finish the cure in time. 

A tear involuntarily leaked from her eye, and she brushed it away angrily. Through all this talk of putting her affairs in order and saying goodbye, somewhere inside she had still been hoping for a miracle. 

“I’m sorry I made you cry,” Robin said softly. “It’s so beautiful. It’ll be okay.” 

Daisy reached out and cupped the girl’s cheek. She was struck by how  _ old _ her eyes looked, her mind having been through lifetimes while her body had only reached that of a 16 year old. 

“It’s okay, Robin. Thank you for the drawing. It is beautiful.” 

Robin smiled, touching Daisy’s hand with her own. 

“This is when we leave,” the young inhuman said, turning calmly to her mother. 

“Thank you for letting her see you,” Polly said to Daisy, grateful that her daughter’s nagging of needing to visit would be over. “And I hope you get better.” 

“Thank you,” Daisy said, not having the heart to explain to the women the future her daughter had handed her. 

Robin and Polly walked out hand in hand, and Daisy was left staring at the drawing again. 

She looked happy, at least. 

Daisy carefully folded the paper and hid it at the bottom of the bag beside her bed, where she kept her laptop, the beanie from Alya, and a few other items. She laid back down, exhausted from that simple task, just as Daniel came in, looking very much better after some real sleep and a shower. 

“Hi Danny.” 

“I missed you,” he said, leaning over the bed to place a gentle kiss over her lips, which she returned gratefully. 

“It was only a few hours.”

“A few hours is still too long.” 

He carefully lifted and repositioned the tubes and monitoring wires so he could slide in the bed next to her, as she curled into his natural body heat. 

“The nurse at the front desk said you had some unexpected visitors just before I got back,” he commented, holding her hand and playing with the engagement ring on her finger. 

“Robin and Polly,” she told him. “A young inhuman that helped us a while back and her mom.” 

“I remember hearing about them. Anything interesting during the visit?” 

Daisy paused, considering the drawing at the bottom of her bag. 

“No, they just stopped by and talked for a bit,” she lied. 

“I’m glad I’m back with you now,” Daniel mumbled into her hair. 

“I’m glad you’re back too,” she said, watching him as he continued to fiddle with her ring. 

Thoughts about that drawing wouldn’t leave her alone, but as they lay in the bed, she knew it was the one thing she couldn’t share with Daniel or anyone else. This was already hard enough on them, no need to make it worse. 

As much as she hated it, this was her burden to bear. 


	23. Time and Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is late again I'm sorryyyyy school is kicking my ass

_ Hoping for something and losing it hurts worse than never hoping for anything at all.  _

Daisy remembered that that was once her life’s anthem— before her parents, before S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, before her life truly began. Somewhere between terrigenesis and the Chronicoms she had forgotten that code, and now she could only wish that maybe she had held onto it a little longer. 

When— to everyone’s surprise, though they wouldn’t admit it— her health had actually started to improve again after spending a month and a half stuck under observation in the hospital, she thought that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t quite down for the count yet and she had said her goodbyes too soon. 

Kora and the rest of the Zephyr crew landed at the five week point, resulting in a tearful reunion between the two sisters and Kora refusing to leave her side for days. 

For two whole weeks, she was able to keep down two whole meals a day, lower the dosage on her pain meds, and even get up and walk around the hospital, so long as someone helped her along the way. 

Fitzsimmons never brought the kids by when she was horribly sick, at Daisy’s request, as she didn’t want to put her niece and nephew through seeing her so ill, but she had been able to see them several times, and had begun remembering how much she missed seeing them. When Bobbi and Elena— with Val of course— stopped by, they talked about color schemes for the wedding, and Mack had snuck her a cheeseburger, which she devoured in minutes, grateful for anything that wasn’t hospital food. Coulson had been out for a while on recruiting trips overseas, but he Facetimed her and she was actually coherent enough to have some quality time with him, even over a screen. Flint came and showed her the newest tricks he had learned to do with his powers, Kora brought her new girlfriend for Daisy to meet, and when May stopped by she had even been able to do the most basic and low impact routine of Tai Chi. 

And Daniel, his presence never wavering through the bad and the good, relished in her new moments of energy and painlessness. He took her to one of the outside courtyards one day for a picnic, and somehow convinced the nurses to let her out in the middle of the night to lay on a blanket in that same courtyard and stare up at the stars. He held her waist as they walked around the halls of the hospital and helped drag the IV pole behind them. He snuck her snacks from the vending machines. He helped her into the shower in her room and washed lengthening hair and massaged her tired, achy muscles beneath the hot spray. He laughed more, held her tighter, and kissed her harder, as if sheer force of will could make the pain and sickness stay away forever. 

So when she woke up one day, violently throwing up and unable to control her sobs of pain, it hurt so much more than if she hadn’t just been getting better. She could sense it in everyone else too, the way they had started to hope again. She was frustrated and upset and getting desperate, but Daniel could tell she was bottling it up and trying to hide it, thinking that having feelings was somehow a burden to those around her. 

Daniel was sleeping in his usual space just beside Daisy’s bed when he woke with a start, hearing her crying. He looked to his left but found with a panic that the bed was empty. It only took a moment before he looked up and found her, laying on the floor only a few steps from the bed, curled up on herself. 

“Daisy, oh my god!” 

He jumped up and ran to her side, kneeling on the cold hard ground beside her and lifting her into his lap. 

“I had to go to the bathroom,” she coughed, leaning into his touch. “I didn’t want to wake you.” 

“ _ Daisy _ .” 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and his heart broke at the discouraged tone of her voice. “I wanted to be able to do it on my own, I just— I couldn’t make it there.” 

“It’s okay, Dais, please just tell me next time,” he said, picking her up from the floor and half carrying her with an arm around her waist as she pulled her IV pole beside them. “Let’s get you to the bathroom, okay?” 

She nodded into his shoulder where her head was resting, and he took the pole from her and tightened his grip on her, taking more of the weight and helping to and back to bed from the bathroom. 

“I hate this,” Daisy groaned weakly, collapsing into the back of the bed, which allowed her to be partially sitting up. 

“I know,” Daniel whispered sympathetically with a kiss to her needle free hand. 

“No! You don’t know!” She said, her frustration presenting itself in a sudden burst of anger. She pulled away and brought her hands up to run over her face, caught up in the frustration of the moment and forgetting the needle poking into the other hand and bumping its connected tube, causing her to flinch at the sharp jab that resulted. Daniel tried to grab her hand and make sure the IV was still properly in place, but she pushed him away again. 

“Daisy, we’re all trying to help, and I know that it seems like this is going to be forever—”

“I’m trying to stay positive, and I’m trying to act strong because I don’t like showing weakness and I’ve always been strong but I’m not! Not anymore!” she cut him off, tears threatening to boil over. “I can’t train, I can’t go on missions, I can’t play with Alya or Val or Brodie. I haven’t left the hospital in months. I can’t even make it to the goddamn bathroom by myself!” 

“You don’t have to be strong all the time. It’s okay to need other people to help you; we  _ want  _ to help you.”

“But that’s not me. I hate who I am now, who I’ve become.” 

“You’re still the same Daisy Johnson you’ve always been.” Daniel hated that she couldn’t see in herself what he and everyone around her saw. 

“How can you say that? Look at me!” 

“Do you regret it?” he asked. 

“What?” 

“Do you regret quaking apart the Chronicom ships and destroying Malick?” 

“No!” She exclaimed as if he had asked the most ridiculous question imaginable. “Of course I don’t. I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant my family would be safe.”

“Exactly.  _ That _ is what makes you Daisy Johnson. Not your powers, not missions, not even walking around. Your willingness to risk everything to save those you love. That is the you I fell in love with.” 

A look of realization came over Daisy’s face. That is who she was, always willing to make the sacrifice play for the people she loved. 

“There she is,” Daniel whispered with a hand to her cheek, sensing the shift in her. “There’s my Daisy.”

Rather than pulling away, she leaned into his warm touch, closing her eyes to savor the feeling of his skin on hers. 

“Thank you,” she said softly. “For reminding me.” 

“You are not weak,” he reemphasized as a response. “If anything, this just proves your strength.” 

Daisy smiled, just barely, before the moment was ruined by her reaching her arm out quickly, signaling that she needed the vomit bucket that the nurses had provided. He handed it over and pulled her hair away from her face just in time for her to start retching, which turned into violent coughing when nothing came up. She slowly pulled away the hand that had flown to her mouth to cover her coughs, and Daniel stared in horror to see it covered in blood. 

“I’m getting the nurse,” he said, standing up quickly. 

She whispered an “ok,” as she burst into another coughing fit, more bloody mucus coming up, and Daniel was terrified by her lack of protest at his words. Normally she never let him call the nurses. 

Daniel ran out of the room and found nurses and doctors already running down the hall. Her elevated heart rate must have tripped an alarm on one of her monitors. He was once again pushed out of the way and stood in terror in the corner of the room while they injected her with a sedative to put her to sleep and stop the coughing, and then as they wheeled her out to do their scans. 

He eventually fell into a restless sleep, which ended as soon as they wheeled Daisy’s bed back into the room. She was still asleep, but the doctor pulled up another chair and sat directly in front of Daniel. 

“It’s getting worse?” Daniel asked, knowing the answer. 

“We found a mass in her left lung about the size of a tangerine,” Dr. Warren said, flipping the printed CT scan image around to show Daniel, who had dropped his head in his hands in defeat. “And on top of that it seems like she caught a bad case of pneumonia, which is putting even more added strain on her lungs. If it weren’t for your friends being so sure that they can come up with a cure, I’d be recommending that we send her home so she can go in the peace and quiet of a familiar space. If Doctors Fitz and Simmons are going to have something for her, they need to get it done immediately.” 

The next few days were somewhat of a blur. Mack and Elena, Kora, May and Coulson, Bobbi and Hunter, even Piper, Davis, and Flint all came by to visit at one point or another over the span of time, but Daniel was hardly paying attention. He was too wrapped up in his world of staring at Daisy, clutching desperately at her hand, and begging her to keep fighting. She didn’t hear most of it, drifting in and out of consciousness for most of the time. Fitzsimmons hadn’t left the lab for more than the few hours that May had forced both of them to leave and get some sleep, desperately trying to find something—  _ anything _ — that would help their best friend. Alya and Brodie were staying with the Rodriguez-Mackenzie family while their parents were holed away in the lab, and while usually an extended sleepover with their cousins were an exciting event, all the children could feel the crushing tension in the house. 

About two weeks later, Daniel was just drifting off to sleep in the soft chair beside Daisy’s bed when his cell phone rang, jolting him awake. 

“Sousa, we have a situation here at HQ,” Mack said over the phone, his voice sounding desperate. 

“What’s happening now?”

“Some kind of portal has opened up in the downstairs lab, we’ve isolated the area, and Fitz came down from the lab two hours ago to take a look, but it’s activity levels have increased dramatically in the past hour. According to him, it looks like something is going to come through within the hour.”

“But what does this have to do with me?” 

“The portal’s frequency matches the alternate timeline you and Kora came from,” Mack said, and suddenly his involvement made sense. “We’re calling in the old team. Everyone except for Jemma, she still isn’t leaving the lab. Flint has the kids until we figure out what is going on. Whatever is about to show up here in this timeline, we’re the most prepared to deal with it.”

“I get that, I really do and I wish I could help,” Daniel said. “‘But I can’t leave her.” 

Daisy had hardly stirred for hours. She had been waking up and been coherent a few times the past few days, but mostly the times when she would regain consciousness she was in pain and confused, trapped between fever dreams and reality. The infection was slowly retreating, but  _ very _ slowly. Too slowly for the doctors’ liking. They were pretty sure that she would eventually pull through the pneumonia, but they weren’t sure if her drained and failing organs would be able to fully recover from this one, especially not with this new tumor appearing in her lung. There wasn’t much else they could do but wait and see if the antibiotics would do their job, keep the machines running her bodily functions for her, and dose her up on pain relievers whenever her groans and cries of discomfort became too much to bear. 

Daniel needed to be sure that he was there in case she woke up— coherently or otherwise— and he definitely needed to be there in case something happened and she took a sudden turn for the worst. 

“I know man, I know, and I’m sorry. But you know I wouldn’t call if it weren’t an absolute emergency,” Mack explained, and Daniel knew it was the truth. 

“Okay,” Daniel grudgingly agreed. “But the minute we know what this is and I’ve done whatever my role is in the situation, I’m coming back.” 

“Of course. I wouldn’t expect anything less.” 

Bobbi and Hunter volunteered to come by the hospital and stay with Daisy, so if she woke up she wouldn’t be alone, and since they weren’t a part of the team when they were in that alternate timeline, their services weren’t required to deal with the portal. 

Daniel reluctantly left Daisy’s side with a firm kiss to her forehead, and drove as fast as he could without breaking any traffic laws back to the base. 

He made it into the room where Mack had told him to meet them to find Fitz rushing around the glowing blue portal and taking measurements, while YoYo, Kora, May, Mack, and Coulson stood ready to fight whatever came through. 

The portal gave one last pulse of energy, before a wide gap appeared in the center, and a familiar figure stepped through. 

“Hey guys,” he said, casually as ever. “We need your help.”

Everyone lowered their weapons in shock, still trying to take a moment to process the sight before them. 

“ _ Deke _ ?” 

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me on insta @_bus.kids_  
> :)


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